The Rocking Dead
by Flagg1991
Summary: Metalhead zombies take over the world, while sheriff's deputy Mick Rimes and his wacky friends try to survive. Cover by Raganoxer.
1. Don't Metalheads Open Inside

**Hello, everyone. The following story is a parody of The Walking Dead I wrote some time ago. In it, metalhead zombies have taken over the world, and sheriff's deputy Mick Rimes embarks on a journey to find his family. He does, but in addition, he finds a zany group of new friends too!**

 **I've completed up to season four. I stick very close to the show/comic's storyline, though some things are different (the Governor and his motivations, for example). Parodies of all your favorite characters and plot points from seasons one through four are present. What follows is episode one.**

It was a warm, lazy Saturday afternoon: Mick Rimes sat in the driver seat of the King County police cruiser and watched as cars whizzed by on Route 10. Next to him, his partner, Blaine Falsh, smiled at himself in the mirror, baring his teeth and looking for bits of lunch.

Or maybe pubes.

Mick chuckled to himself.

"What's so funny?" Blaine asked.

Mick shook his head.

"Come on. What're you laughin at?" Blaine was grinning now too.

Mick told him. They had been partners for years, and friends for longer; otherwise he would have lied.

"Aw, shucks," Blaine said. "It ain't like that, Mick. I didn't do nothin last night."

"Really?" Mick asked, affording him a sidelong glance.

"Honest."

Blaine was a ladies man. Every night he went down to the roadhouse on Route 6 and wound up leaving with a woman. He would come into work the next day bragging about his exploits. Mick could only shake his head. They were both thirty-six, handsome, and doing good in life. The only difference was that Mick had settled down; Blaine hadn't.

"I just figured with it being Friday night and you'd have a blowout."

Blaine shrugged. "Wasn't really in the mood."

"No?"

"Nah." Blaine shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Mick looked back out at the road, a two lane ribbon of blacktop running along rolling farmland. He had learned long ago not to push Blaine. He would open up in his own time.

"I haven't been goin to the bar neither," Blaine said.

"Why not?"

Blaine only shrugged again. "I dunno. I guess I just been thinkin..."

"Bout what?"

"Bout what you and Tori have."

Tori was Mick's wife. They had been together thirteen years and had a son, Howard, who was twelve. In high school, Blaine and Tori dated for a couple years before she and Mick hooked up. Over the years, Mick had caught him looking at Tori with something like envy tinged with sadness.

Presently, Blaine sighed. "I mean...you guys love each other and support each other and all that. It's nice. Makes me want someone to wake up to in the morning, you know?"

"I'll be damned. You're going soft."

Blaine chuckled. "I reckon so."

Mick opened his mouth to reply, but the radio on the dash crackled to life. "All units, 10-15 in progress, First National."

Mick and Blaine looked at each other. Armed robbery in progress.

"Jesus, Mick," Blaine said.

Heart beginning to pound, Mick threw the car into drive, pulled out onto the highway, and hung a sharp U-turn. When they were steady, he turned the sirens on.

"Yeeee-haaaaaw!" Blaine yelled, punching the roof. "This is why I joined the force!"

The road continued straight for a hundred feet before bending around a hillock. Mick pressed on the gas, and the front end began to shake. "When we get there," he said, glancing at Blaine, "I want you to..."

Mick looked back in the road just in time to see a man in a headband and leather jacket step into his lane. "Holy shit!" Blaine screamed.

Mick jerked the wheel to the right, and the car rolled.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Blaine may have been a lot of things, but you couldn't call him irresponsible. He was wearing his seatbelt.

Mick wasn't.

He blacked out just as he flew through the windshield.

2

Mick Rimes dreamed.

In those dreams, shadowy and long, he saw Blaine standing over him, a worried expression on his face. He blinked, and Tori and Howard were there. Voice spoke as if underwater.

"...army. Something about an evacuation."

"I just hope they show up." 

He heard alarms, gunshots, screaming and crying. Again, Blaine was there, stricken. "I'll get you out of here, buddy."

Then that was it.

Until he woke up.

For a long moment, Mick thought he was still dreaming, but the room swam slowly into focus. It was daytime, the ceiling was gray, and the walls were an ugly puke green. Achy, his stomach grumbling, he tried to sit up, but collapsed back to the pillow with a small, strangled cry.

He stayed that way for nearly twenty minutes before sitting up again; this time, though his head spun, he managed to keep from falling over.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Mick took stock of his many woes: His back and butt were numb, sore, as though he had been lying down for a long time. His legs ached, his head ached, he was hungry, and he was thirsty, his mouth so dry he couldn't even spit.

He reached for the call button built into the side of his bed and pushed it.

Nothing happened.

In five minutes, a nurse still hadn't appeared.

Getting to his feet, he shuffled into the bathroom and hit the light switch.

The room remained dark.

Taken somewhat aback, Mick jiggled the light switch up and down.

Nothing.

Huh.

At the sink, he drew some water from the faucet and collected it in his cupped hands. Bringing it to his mouth, he slurped greedily, going back for thirds, fourths, and fifths. It was warm and smelled faintly of rotten eggs, but it was wet and good nonetheless.

Back in the room, Mick went to the door and opened it.

The hall was silent and empty. Directly across from his door, a nurses station sat forlorn, unmanned. Medical supplies littered the floor.

Turning, he found a piece of paper tacked to his door.

STOP! It said. ZOMBIES DON'T COME IN HERE!

 _Zombies?_

 _Zombies?_

Mick didn't like scary movies, but he damn well knew what a zombie was: A reanimated corpse that ate human flesh. Howard played some X-Box game where you had to fight zombies, and Mick remembered thinking they were stupid. _Duuuuuhhhh, stumble, shamble, bump into things._

Zombies were lame.

They also weren't real.

"Hello?"

Mick's voice echoed eerily through the halls. He turned left, right, didn't see anything (living _or_ undead), and sighed. _Something_ had certainly happened. Something bad. Terrorist attack, maybe?

Calling out again, Mick started walking down the hallway, taking a left from his room and following the tiled floor. Stretchers and gurnies sat quiet along the walls. Doors were tightly closed. Something black and nasty caked the floor up ahead, and as he drew closer, he saw that it was blood.

"Hello?" He was starting to get scared.

At an intersection, he paused and looked both ways: To the right, a bank of elevators, to the left, a door, a heavy chain threaded through its handles. Someone had written something on the wood.

DON'T METALHEADS

OPEN INSIDE

 _Don't metalheads open inside?_ What the hell did _that_ mean?

Suddenly, the door bulged forward, and a sea of hands reached through the gap, grasping for him. Uttering a cry, Mick jumped back and nearly fell. The chain held.

So it _was_ zombies!

Hot damn.

He never would have guessed. He wondered if they ate people just like they did on TV.

The door bulged again. The chain groaned. He decided he wasn't goin to stick around to find out.

Next to the elevators, he found a door marked STAIRS.

Opening it, he stepped onto a sunwashed landing. A man was lying dead before the flight heading up, a gun clutched in his head. He looked like a security guard.

In the lobby, Mick found more desertion. Through the double doors, he saw an ambulance sitting at the curb, its back doors standing open. Blood was smeared across the side.

 _Tori. Howard._

He froze.

He had to get home.

Outside, he stumbled to the right and nearly tripped over a woman sprawled across the sidewalk. She wasn't moving.

King Memorial Hospital is surrounded by residential neighborhoods laden with trees. Mick's house was on Fischer Street, to the northeast of where he currently stood. Moving quickly, he crossed the parking lot, ducking behind cars here and there, looking, always, for a zombie.

At Wolfe Road, where cars sat abandoned at crazy angles, Mick turned right and followed it to Dorry Miller Park on Park Place. Standing by the swingset, he could just see the roof of his house.

" _Living...after...midnight..."_ something rasped.

Starting, Mick turned. A horrible rotted _thing_ in a black T-shirt lie partially under the jungle gym, reaching.

" _Rocking...to...the..."_

Mick turned from the thing and started across the park, looking back over his shoulder to make sure none of the things were following him.

When he turned, a black boy was standing there, a gun in his hand. "Freeze!"

Instinctively, Mick reached out and snatched the weapon from the boy's hand. "Really?" he asked. "Were you gonna...?"

Something hard hit him in the back of the head.

Darkness.


	2. Atlanta

Mick woke slowly and languidly from sleep, his head throbbing.

 _Where was he?_

He vaguely remembered something about the hospital. Empty, shadow-bound corridors.

Remembering, he opened his eyes.

A black man stood over him, a gun in one hand.

"Hey!" he said, reaching his free hand out. "It's okay! Be calm!"

Mick looked around. He was in a bedroom. A lamp on a nightstand. A window. Curtains drawn against the sunlight.

"Where am I?"

"You're in my house," the man said. "I whacked you upside your head. Remember?"

Sitting up, Mick rubbed his eyes. "Yeah. Your kid was gonna shoot me."

"No he wasn't," the man said. "He was just as scared as you were. The last time we saw living people, they tried to rob us, gave me a black eye."

Mick was sitting on the edge of the bed now, his face in his hands.

"You just get out of the hospital or something?"

Mick looked up. "How'd you know?"

"Your johnny."

Mick looked down. He was still wearing the light blue hospital gown. "Oh."

"I'm Florgan," the man said, sitting down. "My son's Duame."

"I'm Mick."

"Nice to meet you, Mick. Did you sleep through this?"

Mick nodded. "I woke up today. Found the hospital empty."

"You missed one hell of a party."

"What happened, anyway?"

"Zombies happened," Duame said. The boy was standing in the doorway. Florgan motioned him forward. "This is Mick."

The boy nodded. "Hi, Mick."

Mick nodded. "Hi."

"He's right. Zombies are happening. Started...what, a month ago? News reports of people dying and turning into zombies. Metalhead zombies."

"Metalhead zombies?" Mick asked.

Florgan nodded. "Some virus. Turns them into zombies and metalheads. Or metalheads and then zombies. I don't know. Something."

"Looks like they took over," Mick said.

"Pretty much," Florgan said. He squeezed Duame's shoulder. "Why don't you go get Mick some of that lemonade? He looks thirsty."

"Yes, sir," Duame said, and left.

"It happened quick," Florgan said when the boy was gone. "People started panicking. Government went down. Last I saw of the TV was a week ago. Last radio transmission was...three days? Power's off. Water's on, though."

Mick got up. "I gotta get home. My wife and son..."

"Where do you live?"

"Across from the park."

Florgan shook his head. "We've checked all those house already. If your family's alive, they're probably in Atlanta."

Mick sat. "Atlanta? Why?"

"There's a big refugee camp there. Something the CDC threw together. Me and Duame were gonna go..."

Presently, Duame returned with the lemonade. Mick took it and thanked him.

"If that's where my family is," Mick said, "that's where I need to go. Thank you for your hospitality, but..."

Mick stood again.

"You can't go out there," Florgan said. "Not now. It's almost dark. That's when those things are most active. Atlanta's almost a hundred-fifty miles. You leave now there's no telling what'll happen."

Mick opened his mouth to protest, but realized that he had a point. Things were treacherous enough in the daylight; what would they be in the dark? If he left now, he would die, and what go would he be to his family dead?

Sitting one last time with a heavy sigh, Mick said, "Alright. I'll stay. Just for the night."

Florgan clapped his shoulder.

2

That night, he and Florgan sat in the darkened living room. Duame was asleep in a sleeping bag next to the sofa, snoring softly.

"It's been hard on him," Florgan said.

"He doesn't show it."

"No," Florgan said, "but he talks in his sleep. And he has nightmares. He saw his mother turn into one of those things."

"I'm sorry," Mick said.

Florgan sighed. "So am I."

Later, after Florgan had fallen asleep, Mick crept to the second floor and sat by a window. Zombies shambled through the shadowy streets. They looked lost, damned, cast adrift. He couldn't help but pity them. They were once someone's mother, son, father, brother. Now they were monsters cursed to walk the earth.

Sometime before dawn, Mick crept back downstairs and fell into a thin, fitful sleep.

3

Mick left early the next morning. "I have a few things to do before I go," he told Florgan. "But I'll be back."

First, he went home and packed a bag with uniforms, thirteen in all. Then he took a hot shower.

Downstairs, he went into the hall closet in search of the four photo albums he and Tori had filled in their time together, but they were gone.

They _must_ have gone to Atlanta. Tori wouldn't have left them if she was going somewhere long term, and no looter would have taken them: What was the point of taking someone else's picture albums? You couldn't eat or sell them.

When he had everything he needed, he loaded it all into the Jeep in the garage and drove across town to the police station, where he raided the armory, taking five pistols, two rifles, two shotguns, and an illegal Uzi from the evidence locker. He put these into a bag, and put three more pistols, two rifles, and a shotgun into another bag. He then took two walkie talkies.

Back at Florgan's, he knocked on the door and, when he opened, handed him the bag. "You saved my life," Mick said. "This is the least I can do. Some guns. Some ammo. There's a walkie talkie, too. I'll keep mine tuned to channel three. I'll turn it on every day at sunset to save battery."

"Thank you," Florgan said. "I appreciate it."

They embraced.

"Find your family, Mick," Florgan said.

"I'll try. Are you coming?"

"In a few days."

It was a long, long time before Mick saw Florgan again.

4

Mick was fifteen miles from the city when the cruiser he'd taken from the police station sputtered, started smoking, and died.

The land surrounding the highway was open and rolling, dotted with farms, homesteads, and the occasional strip mall. After a half hour of lugging a heavy bag laden with guns over his shoulder, Mick decided he needed a ride, so he left the highway at the nearest farm and looked around, finding a single cow in a pen.

"Beggars can't be choosers, I guess," he said.

The cow was surprisingly docile. It didn't protest as Mick climbed aboard, and began walking obediently when he kicked its sides.

From the farm, the landscape became increasingly urban. The northbound lane, in which Mick rode, was deserted, while the southbound lane, leading away from the city, was crazily jammed with cars, crooked and silent in the sunlight.

Soon, the Atlanta skyline rose in the distance.

The city was deathly still, tomblike, save for the wind whistling through the streets.

Beneath him, the cow shuddered.

"Shhh," he said, patting its flank. "It's alright. Everything's okay."

He took the first exit and found himself in Atlanta's main business district. Glass and metal monoliths thrust up on either side of him. A few cars stood abandoned in the streets, a few glass storefronts were shattered, and a light smattering of debris littered the sidewalk, but otherwise, Atlanta was empty.

Mick didn't like it.

He had a bad feeling.

At the first intersection he came to, he turned left, and that's when he found them: Every metalhead in Atlanta. When he rolled up they were wandering aimlessly, but when they sighted him, they surged forth as one, all rotting skin, headbands, leather jackets, denim vests, and puffy hair.

Screaming, Mick jumped off the cow and booked it. Behind them, the poor creature mooed as the zombies fell on it.

He turned north, but the streets were filled that way, too. He turned back around, but a thousand of Atlanta's former sons and daughters advanced.

Trapped.

He was trapped.

Looking left and right, he saw a tank sitting on the sidewalk, its turret thrust through the glass façade of a doctor's office. Holding his gun bag, he darted toward it, climbing aboard just as the metalheads surrounding him. One grabbed the cuff of his pantleg, and he kicked free, knocking it down.

Clambering to the top, he lifted the hatch and dropped into the tank.

Inside, it was dark and he was alone.

Trapped.

 _Really_ trapped this time.

Somewhere in the darkness, a radio crackled.

"You! In da tank!" The voice was Asian. "You stooooopit!"


	3. AHoles on a Roof

"How can I get out of here?" Mick asked into the radio.

"I make distraction! You run!"

The radio went silent, and Mick was left with his own thoughts. Though the tank was heavily armored, he could hear the zombies outside. "AC/DC! AC/DC!"

While he waited, he searched the tank for anything useful. He found a Beretta 9mm and a few grenades.

"Okay!" the voice said. "You come out now!"

Mick slung the bag over his shoulder and went to the hatch, which he opened. Though he had only been inside for a few minutes, the summer sunshine was dazzling. Squinting, he climbed out of the tank. The zombies, he was, were all heading east.

Across the street, the doors to a department store swung open, and a man appeared. Mick jumped off the tank and ran to him. It was the Asian. He was tall, thin, and wore a red baseball cap.

Inside, the Asian shut the door. "That was a real dumb move," he said, his accent magically gone.

"What happened to your voice?" Mick asked.

"The accent? I was messing with you. Come on. My name's Ben."

Ben led him past racks of clothes and glass display cases crammed with costume jewelry. At the back of the store, he opened up a door: A flight of stairs disappeared into forever.

At the top, he opened another door that led onto a roof. A man in a leather body suit (sans ass...which was bare) leaned over the edge of the roof, a rifle in his hands. Another man, this one black, sat to himself by an airduct.

"That's Earl," Ben said, nodding to the guy in the leather suit. "He's a racist. And that...well, no one knows his name. He just hangs out in the background and doesn't talk. We call him Yo Dawg."

Earl was looking at him. "Nice uniform," he chuckled sarcastically.

"Nice dominatrix costume," Mick replied.

"Shut up."

"We have a camp outside the city. You can join if you want."

"I'm looking for my family. There's a refugee camp..."

Ben shook his head. "It's overrun. That's where we were heading."

"I don't want that pig with us. We already got one to too many at camp."

"Shut up, Earl," Ben said.

"You shut up." Earl glanced over his shoulder. "You too, nigger."

Yo Dawg threw his arms out. "I wasn't even talking!"

Earl was looking at Mick, his eyes hard. "I don't like cops. Cops are assholes."

"I'm not here as a..." Mick started, but was cut off as Earl spun around and went after Yo Dawg.

"Damn black person!"

"Hey!" Yo Dawg cried, jumping up. "I haven't done anything to you!"

That was it. Mick went after Earl, snatched him by his body-suit, and spun him around, punching him in the jaw. With a womanish cry, the racist lifted into the air and came crashing back down near a pipe. Mick went over, knelt down, and slapped a pair of handcuffs on him. One around his wrist, the other to the pipe.

"You bastard!" Earl spat, kicking. "Let me outta here! I'm gonna mess up your day!"

"Earl..." Mick said.

"Bitch slap you to Jacksonville."

"Take it easy."

"Fuck you, punk bitch."

Sighing, Mick stood up just as the door opened again and a tall blonde woman stepped onto the roof. "Your little distraction backfired. Every rocker in the state is trying to come through the doors and windows."

She looked from Mick to Earl and then back again, her eyes widening. "The hell happened here?"

"Officer Fuckboy suckerpunched me," Earl said. "Snuck up behind me and started throwing blows before I was ready. The gook and the nig are helping him."

"This is Mick," Ben said, ignoring Earl. "He's a cop."

The woman looked at Mick. "He's also a dumbass."

"He rides cows," Earl said. "I saw him. He's probably sleeping with it, too."

"Man, shut up," Yo Dawg said.

"Come make me, Black Lesner."

Yo Dawg shook his head.

"That's right. Big buck can't beat me even when that queer cuffed me up. You're all a bunch of wusses."

Mick had had it. He turned around, walked over to Earl, and drew his leg back. "No!" Earl screamed. "Don't hurt me!"

"Shut up!" Mick roared.

"Alright, alright. I won't talk. Okay? I'll shut up and won't say a word."

"Anyway," the woman went on. "Four floors of cheap junk is all that separates us from a thousand zombies."

Ben looked at Mick.

"Yo Dawg, how's the alley look?"

"I told you, my name is William."

Shaking his head, Yo Dawg went over to the edge of the roof and peered down. "Clear."

"Thanks, Yo Dawg."

"Why do I even talk?" Yo Dawg asked the sky. "No one listens anyway. Unless it affects _them_."

"There's a fire escape," Ben explained to Mick. "Our van's parked in the alley. We were on a supply run, but thanks to you, that's a bust."

"I'm sorry," Mick said.

"Shoulda left his ass in the tank," Earl said. "Only thing he can punch in there is his meat."

Mick spun around.

Earl yelped. "Not the face!"

Ben tossed the blonde woman a set of keys. "Here, Audrey, you drive."

She nodded. Then to Mick: "Uncuff him so we can go."

Mick knelt down before the racist and fished in his pocket for the key. "You gonna be an asshole again?" Mick asked, switching to the other pocket.

"No, sir, I swear, sir," Earl trembled. "I'll be good. Honest."

Mick nodded.

Where was that damn key?

He checked the first pocket again, then the second. He patted his shirt pockets, checked his belt, then reached into his shoe.

"What?" Ben asked.

Sighing, Mick looked up at the Asian. He forced a chuckle. "Looks like...looks like I forgot to pack the keys."

" _What?"_ Earl.

Audrey sighed. " _You're_ a winner."

"I was in a rush," Mick said, feeling two inches tall. "I grabbed what I could. I guess the keys didn't make the boat."

The sound of breaking glass filled the day. Audrey ran over to the edge and looked down. Then over her shoulder. Her face was a mask of fright. "They're coming in!"

"Shit," Ben jerked.

"You better get me the fuck outta here," Earl said, pulling on the cuffs. "I swear to God, you better get me outta here."

Mick looked around. "Does anyone have a saw? A knife? Anything?"

"No," Ben said. "We weren't exactly planning on cutting through a pair of handcuffs today."

Audrey went to the door and poked her head in. "They're on the stairs. Two floors down. Maybe three."

Mick stood up. "Okay," he said, looking at Earl, "here's what we're going to do. You're going to stay here while we go to your camp, get a saw, and come back."

Earl was shaking his head. His face was white and bloodless. "Like hell! You get me out of here right now!"

"Alright," Mick said. He pulled out his billy club and advanced on Earl. "Hold out your hand; I'm gonna break it."

"No!" Earl screamed, lashing out and kicking Mick in the shin. "Get away from me, you psycho!"

Ben and Audrey were hurriedly tying a heavy chain to the doorknob and looping it through a metal handhold flanking the door's left. "It'll hold," Audrey said. "Let's go."

Her, Ben, and Yo Dawg ran toward the fire escape.

"Don't leave me!" Earl mewled. "Please! I swear I'll be good! I swear to God. Don't let them eat me!"

"We will be back," Mick said. "I promise you that."

2

Blaine Falsh cracked open a beer and leaned back in his canvas chair. Before him, a fire burned in a makeshift pit built of stones. Across from him, Tori Rimes roasted a marshmallow on a stick. Her gaze was downcast.

"You okay?" Blaine asked.

"I'm fine," she replied without looking up. She didn't sound fine.

"You sure about that?"

She nodded.

They had made camp outside the city near a quarry: Three tents, two motorhomes, and five assorted cars arranged in a rough circle. Blaine got the idea from watching cowboy movies. He didn't know why it worked but it did.

"You miss Mick?"

"Yeah."

"So do I."

He thought back to the last time he'd seen Mick Rimes, laid up in bed. He drove to the hospital just as things were really starting to go south. His intention was to take him out of there, but the military had commandeered the hospital and were shooting people. In the chaos, all he could do was write a quick message telling zombies to stay away. He wondered if the hospital was still operational. Probably not. Meaning Mick was dead.

Sighing, Tori looked up at him. "Wanna have sex?"

Blaine finished his beer. "Thought you'd never ask."

They got up and started toward the woods.

"Where are you two going?"

Dell Howland, an old man in a stupid Gilligan hat, was sitting in a lawn chair atop his Winnebago. He was holding a rifle.

"Nowhere, Dell," Blaine said.

"You're going somewhere, and I need to know where, because everything's my business."

Blaine ignored them.

The next cock-block came from Mick's son, who ran up to him. "Hi, Blaine!"

"Hi, Harry."

"It's Howard."

"Right."

Blaine knelt down and placed one hand on the boy's shoulder. "Now look. I'm about to go bang your mom out, so make yourself scarce. Okay? Go hang out with Dell or something."

Hopper's eyes got big. "You're gonna be my new daddy?"

"No," Blaine said, winking, "I'm gonna be your mama's new daddy."

Blaine went off into the woods.

"Hey, Harrison!" Dell cried. "Come on over and gossip a little."

"My name's Howard!"

Howard stalked into the bushes.

"What's Harold's problem?" Marol asked. She was standing by the front of the RV with an armful of firewood. "He's acting like a little bitch."

"I don't know," Dell said, "but damned if I'm not gonna find out. It's my business."


	4. You Cain't Protect Us, Mick!

Back in the city, Mick and the others piled into a moving van and started south, past the train tracks.

"So, Mick," Audrey said, glancing at him from behind the wheel. "What brings you to Atlanta?"

"I'm looking for my family. I think they might have come here."

"You think?" she asked.

"I was in a coma when this all started," he said. "I woke up to this."

"You shoulda stayed asleep," Ben said.

"I couldn't. I have Howard and Tori to worry about."

Audrey looked at him. "Howard and Tori? We have a Howard and a Tori with us. We met 'em a couple days ago on the road. Them and a guy named Blaine."

Mick's heart leapt into his throat. "That's them! Blaine Falsh is my best friend. He must be protecting them!"

"He's doing more than that," Ben said under his breath, but Mick didn't hear him. He had found his family. They were safe and sound.

 _Thank you, Blaine..._

Fifteen minutes later, after following a long, winding dirt road, they came to an RV parked lengthwise. A man in a Gilligan hat stood up from a lawn chair on top of it and unshouldered a rifle. When he saw who it was, he climbed down a little metal ladder affixed to the RV's back and walked over. Audrey rolled her window down. "Hi, Dell."

"How'd it go?" he asked. "Who's that?" he nodded to Mick. "He looks like a cop but that's not an Atlanta uniform. What's your name, friend? Where you from? How do you like your steak? How many women have you slept with? Ever kill anyone?"

Ignoring the man's rapid fire questions, Mick simply said, "I'm Mick Rimes. Nice to meet you."

"Can you move the RV?" Audrey asked.

"As long as your promise to tell me all about your trip to Atlanta. Hey – where's Earl? Did he die? Did you leave his body? Did you bring it back? Derrick will be mad if you didn't at least bring his body back..."

" _Just move the goddamn RV!"_

Dell jerked. "Alright, alright." He walked over to the RV, climbed in, and pulled forward, revealing the camp: Several tents and vehicles arranged in a circle around a fire pit. Clothes hung from a line, fluttering in the breeze. A giant man in a black tank top bent over a washtub.

Audrey parked the van next to the RV and killed the engine. "We've been here almost a week," she explained. "We were all on our way into the city when the army started bombing it."

"Bombing?" Mick asked, shocked.

Audrey nodded. "I guess that was their idea of containing it. Anyway, we were all stuck in traffic together. Dell knew about this place, so here we are. It's quiet and far enough away that the metalheads don't bother us. For now."

They got out of the van. Blaine and Tori were walking over, and when they saw Mick, they both froze. Howard came running around them, and he, too, saw Mick.

"Dad!" he squealed, and started running.

Mick dropped to one knee and opened his arms. Tears were streaming down his face. Seeing his son, his wife, it was too much. He wept as he hugged Howard, and then Tori.

"We thought you were dead!" Tori sobbed. "Oh my God, you're alive! We thought you were dead!"

Mick held both of them, and together they cried.

"Mick."

Mick looked up. Blaine stood over them, his hands by his sides. "Mick..."

Mick got up and hugged Blaine.

Blaine hugged him back.

"Thank you," Mick said

After the heartfelt reunion, Tori showed him around the camp while Blaine chopped firewood.

The first person Mick met was Marol Peters, the man he had seen bent over the washtub.

He was shocked to discover that Marol wasn't a man at all.

Standing six feet tall and weighing over two hundred pounds (pure muscle) Marol, with her cargo pants, tanktop, and red headband, reminded Mick of Rambo. Her hair was long, black, and greasy, and when she shook his hand, she squeezed so hard he almost cried out. "Nice to meet you," Marol said.

As they walked away, Mick whispered to Tori, _"That's a woman?"_

"I think so," she said. "Or a shim."

Next he formally met Dell.

"Other than that you've met everyone," Tori said. "Except..."

A man appeared from around the RV. He was tall, with squinty eyes and a Justin Bieber haircut, his bangs windswept to one side. When he saw Mick, he pulled back his fist and came at him. "You piece of shit!"

Mick ducked out of the way as Tori screamed, grabbed the man's left arm, and yanked it behind his back. He yelled in pain.

"You left my brother on that roof!"

"Calm down!" Mick growled.

"You bastard!"

"Calm down!"

The man fought, trashed, and spat. Mick yanked his arm higher, and he yelped, the fight seeming to drain from him.

"Now I'm gonna let you go," Mick said. "But if you come at me again, I'm gonna drop your ass. Okay?"

He let the man go, and he fell to the dirt.

"That's Derrick," Audrey said.

She was standing by the RV. "He's Earl's brother."

Tori looked at Mick quizzically.

Mick told her about what happened with Earl. Then, to Derrick, who was sitting up down and rubbing his arm: "We're gonna go back for him. We just need a saw."

Derrick jumped up. "I got one in my tent." He brushed rudely past Mick and disappeared into a red tent.

"You're going back?" Tori asked.

Mick nodded. "I have to."

"But you just got here."

Derrick reappeared holding a hacksaw. "Come on," he said. "I wanna go get my brother."

"I'll be back," Mick said. "I promise."

"Oh my God."

They were standing on the rooftop back in Atlanta. The door bulged, hands reaching through the gap, but the chain held.

Mick gazed at the empty handcuffs dangling from the pipe. Earl Vixon was gone, the only evidence of his existence being a pool of blood and one severed hand.

Kneeling down, Derrick picked the hand up and sniffed the ragged stump. Then he looked at Mick, his eyes dancing with hatred. "He chewed it off."

"I told him we'd come back," Mick said. "And the door's still holding. He'd be fine if he just had some patience."

" _Patience?"_ Derrick jumped up. "Would _you_ have patience if you were locked to a roof and those things were coming?" He gestured to the door.

Derrick advanced threateningly. Mick hauled off and hit him, punching him square in the nose: Slipping on the blood, the redneck went down.

"We're not gonna find your brother like this," Mick said, huddling down.

Derrick watched him with wide eyes.

"Now stop trying to play Mr. Tough Guy before I handcuff _you_ to the roof. Got it?"

Derrick nodded.

"Now come on."

After chewing his hand off, Earl went to the fire escape, blood gushing from his ruined arm. Derrick followed it like a bloodhound. In the alley, it went for two blocks before disappearing at a door.

Inside, he followed it to another door, down another alley, and finally to a wall where it stopped.

"I dunno," Derrick said, pressing his fingers in the blood and holding them to his face. "My guess is he got ahold of a lighter and cauterized the wound."

Mick glanced down the alley. Zombies passed by in the street.

"It's getting dark," he said. "We should head back."

Derrick looked at him, mulled a response, and finally nodded. "He's free," he said. "He'll make his way back."

That night, Mick built a fire next to his tent and roasted hotdogs while Howard excitedly told him about their trip from King County to Atlanta. Tori rested her head on his chest.

Sometime after midnight, they turned in, and after Howard was asleep, they made love.

Blaine Falsh watched, balling his fists so hard his nails left half-moons in his flesh.

The next morning, Mick was sitting by the fire when Tori went off into the woods to pee. It was early, and the camp was just beginning to stir. Dell was on top of his RV, Derrick was gutting a small woodland animal he had killed with his bow, and Marol was doing one handed push-ups. Howard was still asleep, and Mick figured he'd give the boy another half hour before making him start his day.

He was just about to roast himself another hotdog when a sharp, painful scream rose from the forest.

Tori!

Mick jumped up and ran toward the woods as fast as he could, drawing his gun. "Tori!" he called.

Inside the forest, the land dipped slightly before rising again. At the top of the rise, Blaine Falsh stepped from behind a tree and stuck a gun in Mick's face.

"Freeze!"

He had his arm around Tori's neck. She was wide-eyed, frightened.

"You!" Blaine shook. "You ruined _everything!"_

"Blaine, put the gun down!"

"YOU CAIN'T PROTECT US, MICK!"

"What's going on?" Dell asked. "It's my right to know..."

As soon as the nosey old man appeared on Mick's right, Blaine turned and shot him.

"Stay back! All of you!"

Mick looked over his shoulder. Marol, Derrick, and Ben had come into the forest, drawn by the scream.

Pointing his gun at Mick again, he said: "Me and Tori had something. Something special. We was gonna be a family. Then _you_ came along and ruined it!"

"Blaine," Mick said, holding his hands up. "Put the gun down. Let's talk about this."

"Ain't nothin to talk about," Blaine said. He put the gun to Tori's head and pulled the trigger.

Mick watched as the round exploded out of her head. Watched as her eyes went wide and her mouth fell open. Watched as she dropped to the ground. It all happened in slow motion.

"No!" Mick screamed. He raised his gun, but before he could fire, a metalhead ripped Blaine's throat out from behind.

Suddenly they were everywhere. Leather pants. Studs. Perms. Mick fired, killing the one who had bitten Blaine, and fell back. Ben lifted his AK47 and opened up, taking three rockers down while Derrick plugged one with his bow.

"Get back to camp!" Mick screamed.

Back at camp, three zombies stumbled among the tents. Mick shot one, tried to shoot the other. _Click-click._

Running, he hit the thing with his gun, knocking it down. He lifted his foot and stomped on its head. Audrey emerged from her own tent with sleepy eyes and messy hair. "What's going on?"

"Metalheads!"

She glanced to the forest just as the dead began to emerge. Ben shot several while Derrick switched to a pistol and took three more down. Audrey ducked into her tent, grabbed a Ruger, and came out.

Kneeling down, she brought the rifle to her shoulder, took aim, and dropped two zombies in quick succession.

Yo Dawg crawled out of his own tent just as a zombie lurched up. Screaming, he tried to pull back inside, but it grabbed him and bit his neck.

Screaming, Mick reloaded and shot the motherfucker.

And then Yo Dawg.

And that was it.

Crashing silence reigned.

The survivors stood around the RV, dirty, scared, and aimless.

"This place isn't safe anymore," Mick said. "We gotta move."

"Yeah?" Derrick asked. "Where?" 

"South," Mick said. "Away from the city. The metalheads eat people. The cities are out of people. So they're gonna start spreading out. We have to move, and we have to move quick."

Fifteen minutes later, they were on the road.


	5. The Farm (Ugh)

They were travelling along I-75 south of Atlanta when the RV began to smoke.

Mick was driving, slouched back in the seat and thinking absently of Tori and Blaine when Derrick, who was riding shotgun, slapped his arm. "We got a problem," he said, tossing his greasy hair.

"What's that?" Mick asked, looking at Derrick.

"That," Derrick said.

Mick looked. Thick black smoke was rising from the seams around the hood.

"Shit," Mick said. To Derrick: "You know anything about cars?"

"Nah," Derrick replied, "but Dell could have fixed it."

Mick was about to respond when the road, after bending, was suddenly filled with twisted metal. Mick's heart leapt into his throat. He slammed the break and spun the wheel to the left, narrowly missing the back bumper of a black Toyota. The RV fishtailed, tipped, and slammed back down onto its wheels, coming to a stop just shy of the concrete divider separating the lanes.

In the back, Howard yelled. "Oh, yuck!"

"Howard!"

Mick unbuckled his seatbelt and went into the dinette. "Howard! Are you okay?"

"I'm covered in shit!"

Mick pushed open the door to mico-bathroom, and Howard was indeed covered in shit. It was in his hair, his clothes, his eyes. "What the hell were you doing back here?"

"Pooping!"

Mick shook his head. "Well, get yourself cleaned up."

Still shaking his head, Mick went out the side door. The day was hot and still; the dense forest flanking the highway was alive with the sound of cicadas.

Derrick was standing by the ass of the RV. Ben, looking worried, climbed out of his red Jeep Grand Cherokee. "What's wrong?"

"Smash-up," Derrick said. "RV ain't workin right neither."

Audrey appeared from behind the Jeep. Marol followed close by, dressed in a pair of green army pants, a brown tanktop, and an American flag headband. "What's up?" Audrey asked.

"The RV's broke down," Ben said.

"Lovely," Audrey replied.

"Now, it ain't broke down," Mick said, holding up one hand. "But it's close. We gotta fix it, then we gotta turn around."

Just then, the sound of something rasping a Van Halen song washed over Mick. He turned just as a metalhead shambled around the RV, its rotten hands clawing air. It was dressed in a faded purple spandex body suit. Looked like Brett Michaels, only better preserved. Mick drew his Colt and fired; the round tore half the zombie's head off and drove it to the ground. The report echoed loudly.

"We can't fix it here," he said, putting his gun back in his holster. "We need a quiet place off the highway. We..."

Derrick cut him off. "Hey, check it out."

Mick followed Derrick's finger: Pure white smoke drifted into the air from behind the trees along the western flank of the highway.

"Someone's cooking," Derrick said. He sniffed the air. "Barbeque. Chicken. Ribs. Corn. Diet Dr. Pepper. Bengay."

"Bengay?" Ben asked, making a sour face.

"How do you smell that?" Mick asked.

"I'm a tracker," Derrick said, tossing his head and pursing his lips. "I can smell a lot of things."

"Well, if someone's cookin, maybe they can help us. I want you all to stay here. Me and Derrick are gonna check it out."

Derrick grabbed his bow from the RV.

The land fell away from the road. The ground was carpeted with dead leaves, and the trees were widely spaced. Warm sunlight fell through the treetops, cascading down onto the forest floor. Mick led the way while Derrick took up the rear. By now Mick was beginning to smell the food too.

"It's over there," Derrick said.

At the edge of the forest, they stopped and crouched. Across a wide, green field, Mick could see a big white farmhouse and a dilapidated barn. A smoker flanked a wooden picnic table. An old man in a white shirt and black pants stood close by, as if waiting for the food to be done. A woman in a cowboy hat sat plates on the table.

"This place looks nice," Mick said. "We can be safe while we fix the RV."

"What if the old guy don't want us here?" Derrick asked.

"He's not gonna have a choice."

"You think the RV'll make it here?"

"Probably," Mick said. "Where do you figure the driveway starts?"

Derrick scanned the homestead. "We go back a mile, to the last exit. It'll be near a gas station with a big wooden rooster on the roof."

Mick looked at him.

"I told you," Derrick said, tossing his head yet again. "I'm a tracker."

"Stop doing that."

"What?"

"Tossing your head like a woman."

Back at the highway, Mick told the group about the farm. "We're gonna see if we can convince him to let us stay. But if we can't..."

Audrey and Marol moved their Explorer, then Ben swung tightly around (hitting the retaining wall). Mick backed the RV up, and then pulled to the left. At the last exit, they turned, and a service road brought them to a highway. To the left, a Texaco station.

With a rooster on top.

The driveway was next to it. As they pulled close to the house, the man and woman appeared from around back.

"Let me do the talking," Mick said, getting out.

Mick met the man half way. He was tall, white-haired, and in his late sixties if not his early seventies. The woman was much younger. Thirty at most, with hazel eyes and luscious lips. Mick turned to his left. Ben was there. Grinning.

"Howdy," the old man said.

"Hello," Mick replied. "My name's Mick Rimes and these are my people. We're havin some car troubles and was wondering if you might let us stay here to have a safe place to fix it. Mr...?"

"Berschel," the old man said, "Berschel Reen. This is my daughter, Aggie."

The woman nodded.

"You can stay and fix your car if you like, but after that you gotta be on your way. If you're here overnight, you have to camp in the field."

"Except you," Aggie said to Ben, "you can stay in _my_ room."

Ben chuckled and started strutting forward. Mick grabbed him by the back of the shirt and yanked him back. "Not now, dumbass," he hissed.

"You people are causin too much trouble!" Berschel said. "You have to leave!"

"Please," Mick said. "This place is...special. Let us stay. We won't bother you."

"Daddy, let 'em stay!"

Berschel sighed. "Alright. But fix your car and get."

Dusk.

Derrick crawled from beneath the RV, his face and hands covered with oil, and shook his head. "We need a head gasket."

"We gotta get one," Mick replied.

At the farmhouse's front door, he knocked. Berschel appeared. "Is there an auto parts store hereabout? We need a head gasket."

"You might try Auto Zone. It's five miles south of here. But I wouldn't go tonight. You're just gonna have to camp here, I guess."

Back at camp, Mick told Derrick what Berschel had said.

"He's right. It's too dark now. We'll get it in the morning."

Howard slept in the RV that night while Mick sat by the fire, finding himself occasionally gazing up into the stars. Derrick kept him company until midnight, when he wandered off to find a place to sleep.

"How you doing, Mick?"

It was Audrey. She came from the shadows and sat down.

"Good, I guess," Mick replied.

"Long day, huh?"

"Too long."

"I hear that. Hopefully we'll get the RV fixed and be on our way."

Mick shrugged. "Maybe. And maybe we shouldn't leave. This place is...special."

He'd been feeling it since the moment they hit the driveway earlier that day, a feeling of...peace, tranquility. The outside world, the metalheads, seemed...distant here. This place was pure, untouched.

He said as much, and Audrey nodded. "I feel something too."

That night, Mick slept peacefully for the first time in a week.

Mick and Derrick took Ben's Jeep across town to Auto Zone early the next morning. Zombies wandered the streets. The parking lot was crawling with them.

"You distract them," Derrick said. "I'll run in, grab the part, and come out the back."

Before Mick could protest, Derrick jumped out of the car and ran for the front doors, punching a metalhead on his way.

"Hey!" Mick called out the window. "Hey, zombies! Come here!"

As one, they turned away from Derrick and started coming toward the Jeep. Mick pressed the gas and crept along the street. "You guys like metal? I _hate_ metal! Metal sucks!"

Slowly, Mick navigated the Jeep around the side of the building and into the back lot. He put the Jeep in park and looked into the rearview mirror.

The zombies were coming.

 _Come on, Derrick,_ Mick thought, his heart constricting in his chest.

Just as the first zombies reached the bumper, the store's back door flew open and Derrick rushed out. A zombie reached for him, and he kicked out its legs. He ripped open the door and jumped in. Another zombie reached for him, but he slammed the door on its hand; Mick heard its bones cracking.

"Drive!"

Mick hit the gas: The Jeep rocketed into the street.

"You got it?" he asked.

Derrick nodded. "Yeah."

"Good."

Meanwhile, back at camp, Ben found Aggie by the horse stable. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a button-up shirt which clung to her ample bosom. She was feeding one of the horses when he came up.

"Hey, how's it going?" he asked.

She turned, saw it was him, and smiled, brushing her hair behind her ear. "Hey. Long time no see."

Ben grinned. "I saw you yesterday."

"Like I said: A long time."

Ben felt a flutter in his stomach. Embarrassed, he changed the topic. "Nice horses."

"Yeah," she said, looking at the creature leaning over the fence. "Daddy's had horses since I was a little girl. I wanted a pony when I was seven and I got one." She looked him dead in the eyes. "You wanna ride?"

Ben shook his head. "Me on a horse? No way. I'll probably fall off and break my neck."

Aggie giggled and leaned close to him; she smelled of hay and sweat. "I wasn't talking about the horses."

For a moment Ben didn't understand what she was saying, but then realization dawned on him.

"Sure," he said, his mouth dry.

Just then, Mick and Derrick returned.

"Tonight," she said, and went away, biting her lower lip.

"Damn, I'm smooth," Ben told himself as he popped his collar and walked over to the Jeep. It was in one piece, thank God.

Mick climbed out and slammed the door. Derrick followed.

"Did you get it?" Audrey asked.

"Yep," Mick said, holding up a box.

"Now comes the fun part," Derrick said. "Puttin it on."

Three hours later the RV was fixed. Mick, feeling like a man on death row, walked up to the house to tell Berschel.

At the door, the old man listened as Mick explained the situation. "We're all ready to go, but... this is a special place, Berschel. It's safe here. It's magic. Out there...it's death. Here...it's life. Please...let us stay here."

Berschel sighed. "You're putting me on the spot, Mick."

"Let us stay. We'll do all your work for you. You'll never have to lift a finger again. Plus, we can keep you safe...if any metalheads show up. Please. I'm begging you. I got my kid to think about, my friends. We can't keep going out there."

Berschel rubbed his chin and made a thoughtful noise. "I _could_ use some help around here. Alright. You can stay."

Mick squeezed Berschel's shoulder. "Thank you," he said.

Berschel nodded. "I'll have a list of chores for you tonight."

"We'll get 'em done."

Back at the RV, Mick called out: "Alright, everyone: Listen up!"

Derrick, wiping his hands on a rag, walked over, as did Audrey, Ben, and Marol.

"Berschel's letting us stay here," he said, looking at each member of the group. "But we're gonna have to earn our keep. No free rides. Can you people handle it?"

Everyone agreed.

"Good," he said. "This is how we eat. This is how we _survive_."

Over the next four weeks, they established a routine.

A very dull routine.

They cooked, cleaned, sat around, talked, washed clothes, cooked, patrolled the parameter, cleaned, talked, killed the occasional metalhead, chopped firewood, milked cows, stared at the walls, watched paint dry, cleaned, cooked, argued, washed clothes, cooked, vegged out, cleaned, chopped fire wood, blew into jugs to make music, dug a latrine, filled a latrine, emptied a latrine, cooked, cleaned, target practice, watched grass grow, argued, pouted, cooked, cleaned, patrolled, debated whether they were losing their humanity or not, talked, chopped firewood, played with themselves, target practice, vegged out, lazed around, cooked, cleaned, sat around, built fires, talked about their lives before the zombies, talked, chopped firewood, tuned Berschel's banjo, played board games, played cards, pouted, talked, killed another metalhead, pouted, mumbled, killed one more metalhead (things are getting exciting now!), cooked, cleaned, emptied the latrine, pouted, talked, cooked, cleaned, mended Berschel's fence, grew some crops, talked, pouted, bared their soles, walked around, vegged out, cooked, cleaned, killed _two_ metalheads (the excitement was so great it wiped them all out and they had to sleep for a while), cooked, cleaned, argued, stared at each other, stared at Berschel, stared at Aggie, stared at the woods, stared at nothing, stared at the sky, went stir crazy, cooked, cleaned, dug a hole and filled it back in, mended Berschel's stupid fence again (who keeps breaking it?), tarred Berschel's roof, argued, cooked, cleaned, wished they had something better to do, made shadow puppets, killed some animals, cleaned some animals, cooked some animals, talked about their feelings, cried on each other's shoulders, changed their tampons, cooked, cleaned, watched the sunrise and the sunset, killed a metalhead, mended Berschel's fence yet again (seriously, who the fuck keeps breaking it?), cooked, cleaned.

By early August, they had settled down. Marol ate ridiculous amounts of raw meat and worked out, Ben spent most of his day with Aggie (Berschel didn't know about them, but Mick didn't think he'd be too happy, which worried him), Howard wandered off for hours at a time, Derrick did...things.

It was August 8 by the calendar in Berschel's living room, and Mick was washing the crust out of his underwear when Berschel came storming up.

"That Filipino boy's been with daughter!" he roared.

"Ben?"

"Whatever he calls himself. I found him in Aggie's room. Neither one of them were wearing any clothes. You gotta go."

Mick stood up. "Look, hey, calm down. I'll talk..."

"I want you people gone."

Drawn by the argument, the others walked up. "What's going on?" Marol asked.

"I'm kicking you people out."

Marol laughed. "You think so?"

Berschel turned on her. "I know so."

"Alright, bitch," Marol said, ripping her tank top off: His stomach bulged with muscle. "Square up." She raised her fists and weaved back and forth.

"Hey!" Mick called. "Everyone calm down. We can talk about this."

Berschel opened his mouth, but closed it again. "Did you hear that?"

Mick cocked his head. "What?"

"Listen."

Mick did.

It sounded like chanting.

" _Mega-DETH! Mega-DETH!"_

Mick's heart sank into his stomach. "Metalheads."

Aggie and Ben ran up just then, Ben buttoning up his shirt and Aggie struggling to zip up her pants. "Daddy, we can explain."

"There's no time," Berschel said. "The zombies are coming."

Mick turned around. The sound came from everywhere.

There! They were coming out of the forest, jerking and stumbling like a bunch of drunks. Two. Four. Twenty. Jesus Christ.

"Oh my God," Derrick muttered.

"Alright!" Mick screamed, taking charge. "We're gonna fight 'em!"

"You don't have to tell _me_ twice," Marol said. She pulled an Uzi from her pants and held it up.

"Let's go."

Standing in a tight line, they concentrated their fire on the zombies, picking them off with ease. But for every one they killed, six more emerged from the trees.

"We can't hold 'em off!" Mick screamed. "In the RV! We gotta go!"

"Go?" Berschel asked. "But...this is my home. I can't go!"

"Come on!"

Mick holstered his gun and ran to the RV, climbing in behind the wheel. Derrick threw down his bow and arrow and followed.

"Come on, daddy!" Aggie cried. "We have to go!"

Berschel sighed. "Alright."

When everyone was inside, Mick stomped the gas, and they made a narrow escape.

Thirty miles later, at their new camp by the road, Mick roasted a hotdog.

And realized something.

Audrey wasn't with them.

Audrey stumbled and fell, twisting her ankle. Zombies were everywhere. She pushed herself up, stabbed one in the head with her knife, and continued on, limping. A half mile later, she fell to her knees.

Damn it!

 _This is what you get for trying to take a shit during the zombie apocalypse,_ she told herself: She was in the old outhouse behind the barn when it happened. She came out just in time to see the RV plowing through a group of zombies and disappearing down the driveway.

 _Stupid. Stupid._

Huffing, she pushed herself back up. A few zombies came closer. She pulled out her pistol and shot them in their heads. When the gun was out of ammo, she dropped it and tried to flee, but her bum ankle howled, and she went down.

This was it.

The zombies were closing in.

She shut her eyes.

But nothing happened.

The grunts of "Metallica" "Korn" "Judas Priest" and "Slayer" fell silent. She opened her eyes.

A figure in a cloak, its face hidden in shadow, loomed over her, a sword in its hand.

"Who are you?" Audrey asked.

"I am MiShawn."

Audrey passed out.


	6. Mick Finds a Prison

"Check it out," Derrick said.

They had been trekking through the woods for nearly a week, their vehicles abandoned back on the interstate. By Mick's estimate, they were fifty miles southwest of the farm, far from any cities, which possibly accounted for their seeing few rockers.

"What is it?" Mick asked. He and the others were resting by a lazy stream. Derrick sat perched on a hillock lined with trees, shielding his eyes from the sun.

"Come look."

Sighing, Mick got up and walked over, hunching down beside the tracker.

"There."

They were on a ridge overlooking a valley. In the middle of it, surrounded by woods on all sides, a sprawling prison baked in the August sunshine.

"Look at the walls," Derrick said, pointing out the high wire fence surrounding the complex. "Got towers too."

The prison complex was made up of a dozen different buidlings arranged around a concrete courtyard. Bringing his binoculars to his eyes, Mick studied the compound, scanning the yard, the buildings, and the fence.

He looked at Derrick and licked his lips. Prisons have food, medicine, and weapons, which made it attractive. As for metalheads...they couldn't get through those walls unless there were a thousand of them.

"I like it," Mick finally said.

"I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I wanna go to prison."

Mick walked over to the others. They were tired, dirty, and red. "Listen up. There's a prison over there. Got walls, food, meds. We're gonna take it."

"What if there are already people living there?" Aggie asked.

"I'll take of them," Marol said, cracking her knuckles.

"Come on," Mick said.

Audrey dragged herself to a stop and took a long sip from her canteen: The water was warm and slimy, but she didn't care. Beside her, MiShawn also came to a stop.

"You okay?" the black woman asked.

Audrey nodded. "I'll make it," she said, screwing the cap back on.

They were walking along Route 7 east of Thomaston, a narrow two lane asphalt river surrounded on all sides by tall, green trees. They had been on the road for four days, since their last hideout, a gas station on the outskirts of Macon, was overrun.

"It's inevitable," MiShawn had said at one point, "that we find a group, someone well off, with food, guns, maybe even walls."

Audrey didn't share her friend's optimism. Things like safety were concepts of the past.

Presently, MiShawn looked up at the sky. "It's getting late," she said, "we'll camp..."

Before she could finish, a helicopter roared overhead, so low it barely cleared the treetops. It continued on past them for several hundred feet before disappearing. A loud crash rang out.

Audrey and MiShawn looked at each other.

"Come on!" MiShawn said.

They left the highway and ran through the woods. The helicopter lay brokenly on a slight incline, smoke rising from its engine. They were almost to it when, suddenly, two pick-up trucks appeared, and a team of men with guns jumped out. MiShawn grabbed Audrey and pulled her into a bush before they could be seen.

They watched as the men circled the helicopter, one of them poking his head into the cockpit.

"What do you think...?" Audrey began, but the words died on her lips when someone pressed something to the back of her head.

MiShawn turned.

"Hold it right there," a man said. "Don't move."

"You," a different voice said, "blondie, turn around."

The voice was strangely familiar.

Hands up, moving slowly, her heart slamming in her chest, Audrey turned.

Earl Vixon stood over her, a machine gun in his hands.

When he saw who it was, he smiled a predator's smile. "Holy shit...if it isn't little miss Audrey."

Crouching in the tall grass bordering the fence, Mick studied the façade of the buildings beyond.

Low, long, and made of brick, the buildings ran lengthwise along the courtyard: From here Mick could see their southern ends, dotted with windows. The one of the right had a giant white D painted on it. The one directly across from it had an A.

He didn't see any indication that the buildings had been damaged in any way. He _did_ , however, see a number of rockers wandering through the courtyard.

"No one in the guard towers," Derrick said, settling down next to him. Mick had ordered him to walk the perimeter. "Fence is intact, too."

"Alright," Mick said. He looked over his shoulder: The others huddled together. "Marol, come up here with us. The rest of you: If something happens, run."

With that, Mick motioned to Derrick, and then stood up. Moving low and quick, he reached the fence, and then followed it to the gate, which stood open. A metalhead in a Black Sabbath band tee lurched toward him, and he pistol-whipped it: Marol finished it off with a judo chop to the dome.

Inside the gate, Mick waited for the others, and then pulled it closed. There was a padlock, but he didn't engage it: They may need to make a hasty exit.

They followed the access road to the top of the hill, and a final gate. Mick opened it, and stepped into the courtyard.

"Alright," Mick started...

Suddenly, metalheads appeared from everywhere.

"Damn it!" Mick shouted.

Derrick shot one in the head with his bow, and Marol kicked one so hard it broke in half. Ben swung his M1 Garand like a club, cracking one's skull open, and Aggie shot one in the face.

"Berschel!" Mick said, turning. "Take Howard to the front gate. Wait for my sign."

Berschel nodded. "Come on, Henry."

Howard rolled his eyes, but followed the old man without protest.

A zombie with long hair flowing from beneath a leather top hat threw itself at Mick, grabbing him with cold, dead hands. Screaming in revulsion, Mick jammed his gun against the side of its head and pulled the trigger; the zombie jerked and collapsed in a heap to the concrete.

Another rocker, this one a naked woman, lurched out of an open doorway leading into D Building and tried to grab Aggie, but Ben snatched it by its hair and slammed its head against the side of the building.

Marol walked calmly along the façade of A Building, pistol-whipping a zombie here, headbutting one there. A metalheads saw her coming, and seemed to hesitate. She stopped, aimed the pistol at them, and fired.

 _Click-click._

Cussing, Marol threw the gun down and started running after them. To Mick's amazement, they turned and started to run, issuing high, terrified screams.

One, a woman, tripped and fell. Mick could have sworn that before Marol kicked her head off her shoulders, she looked back and wailed.

"Come on!" Mick called to the others. "Let's finish this!"

He ran after Marol. Ahead, the courtyard gave way to a wide, grassy field that gently sloped down toward the fence. The remaining metalheads, about six in all, were shambling as quickly as they could toward salvation. Marol followed, shoving one down and kicking another's leg clean off. Several reached the gate and started climbing. Marol simply pulled them off and beat them down.

When it was over, Marol gave out a savage victory cry and dug her hands into the gaping guts one of her victims. She then smeared it all over her face.

 _That's_ how they took the prison.


	7. Meet The Governator

"How much farther?" Audrey asked.

She and MiShawn were sitting in the back of Earl's station wagon. Earl was behind the wheel, and a scrawny Latino man named Martin was riding shotgun.

"Couple miles," Earl said, taking a drag of his cigarette.

Behind them, the two pick-ups they had seen from the bushes loomed large. One of them contained the bodies of the men killed in the helicopter crash. Another bore the shattered remains of the sole survivor, the pilot, a black man with bushy hair. Martin, who was apparently in charge, didn't think he'd survive the night "But we'll give Dr. Logan a shot anyway."

"So, what's it like?" Audrey asked, leaning between the seats.

"It's like paradise," Earl said. He shifted to look at her, clutching the wheel with his good hand and gesturing toward her with the hook where his other had been: Audrey saw with something like pity that it wasn't even a real hook at all, but a bent wire coat-hanger. "We got power, water, walls. You're gonna love it, sugar. You too, Meeee-Shawn."

"Really?" Audrey asked, hopeful. She grinned and looked at MiShawn. "That's great!"

MiShawn wasn't smiling.

The highway, flanked by dense forest on either side, curved to the right, crossed a lazy stream, and entered the outskirts of a town: WELCOME TO MORNINGWOOD a clapboard sign read. A NICE PLACE TO LIVE.

"These people are like family to me," Earl said, flicking his cigarette out the window.

"They took me in when I was at my lowest and built me up. Ahhh, there we are. Home sweet home!"

Audrey craned her neck to look: Ahead, a wall made of tires, rubble, and tree trunks rose into the sky; fifteen feet high if it was an inch.

"Wow," Audrey breathed. "It's perfect!"

At the gate, Earl poked his head out the window, and a man occupying a guard tower nodded to someone standing on the ground. A moment later, the gate slid rustily open.

"Look at it!" Audrey drew, grabbing MiShawn's arm.

The road marched steeply up a hill, divided by a strip of lush green median. On either side, quaint brick storefronts kept endless watch. People moved languidly up and down the cobblestone sidewalks. Audrey could see from their demeanor that they hadn't a care in the world.

"Isn't it nice?" Earl asked.

"It's wonderful!"

She looked at MiShawn: The black girl was watching guardedly out the window. "Isn't it nice, MiShawn?"

MiShawn shot her a dirty look and ignored the question.

Whatever. Audrey was too happy to be brought down.

At the top of the hill, Earl pulled into a parking space abutting what looked like the town courthouse. "This is the old town district," he said. "We got three blocks north and south, two blocks east and west. It ain't very big, but it's nice."

"Where are we going?" Audrey asked as Earl and Martin got out.

Poking his head back into the car, Martin spoke for the first time. "To see the Governator."

Once the courtyard was clear of rockers, Mick, Derrick, and Marol spread out, each checking the doors and windows of the buildings to make sure they're secure. "We can't clear all the buildings," Mick had said, "but we can make sure the rockers inside don't come outside."

Once that was done, they gathered at the door to A Building, which stood partially ajar. Beyond it was what looked like a lobby. Ben handed Mick a keyring and grinned.

"What's this?" Mick asked.

"Found it in the warden's office," he said. "Keys to the kingdom."

"Warden's office? Where's that?"

Ben pointed vaguely west. "Admin building. There were a couple rockers inside but I took care of them. It's clear."

Mick nodded. Turning to the rest of the group, he said, "Alright. We're gonna go in and clear the building. Derrick, Marol, with me. Ben, you stay with Bershel, Aggie, and Howard. If we're not back in twenty minutes, come in after us."

Ben nodded.

"Okay. Let's do it."

Mick entered the building.

"I don't like it," MiShawn said.

They were sitting in a well-appointed room overlooking the town commons. A table by the window boasted assorted goods: Fresh fruit, ice tea, beef jerky. Audrey poured herself another class of tea and gazed out the window. Earl said this was the "intake department," and that The Governator would be with them shortly.

Sighing, Audrey turned. "Why don't you like it?" she asked.

Instead of answering directly, MiShawn looked around, studying the place as though it were utterly alien. "Call it a feeling," she said enigmatically.

Audrey threw her hands up. "The whole time we've been travelling together, you've been talking about finding a place just like this. Now you have a bad feeling. Why? There must be _some_ reason. What is it?"

MiShawn just shook her head. "It's a feeling."

Just then, the door opened up, and Martin stepped in, "Ladies," he said, nodding, "the Governator."

He stepped aside, and a tall, muscular man entered the room. He was six-four, maybe six-five, and so buff it looked painful. He was wearing black jeans, a black T-shirt, a black leather jacket, and black sunglasses. His hair was brown and close-cropped. He moved with robotic grace.

"It's nice to meet you," he said with a thick German accent. "I am the Governator. I run this community."

He offered his hand to MiShawn, but she replied with a dirty look. Sensing that she wouldn't take it, he swung it to Audrey, and she grabbed it.

"I'm Audrey," she said, biting her bottom lip. She liked Morningwood a _lot_. "This is MiShawn."

"Good afternoon," the Governator nodded. "I hear that you are looking for a group to join. We are always looking for new members. We have power, running water, medicine, and food. You will like it here."

"I already like it here," Audrey said, running her hand through her hair.

Ignoring her _obvious_ interest, the Governator looked at MiShawn. "You don't have to stay here if you don't want to. We are a free society. You come and go as you please." He looked back at Audrey. "Do you think you want to stay?"

Before Audrey could reply, MiShawn cut in. "We'll think about it."

"Good," the Governator replied. "I must go and check on the pilot now. Earl will show you your quarters. Get back to me when you are ready."

When he was gone, Audrey shot MiShawn a dirty look. "Think about it?" she asked.

"I don't like it here," MiShawn said, "and I don't like the Governator."

Audrey chuckled bitterly. "You're a piece of work, you know that? We've been here fifteen minutes and _you_ don't like it." She sighed and shook her head. "I tell you what. We'll stay the night. If anything bad happens, we can leave. But if everything's still hunky-dory, like I know it will be, we stay. Got it?"

MiShawn's eyes bore into her. "You might be hoodwinked, but I'm not. There's something wrong here, and I'm going to find out what it is. Then when I prove to you that Morningwood is bad, you're going to feel stupid."

The door opened again, and Earl stuck his head in. "You ladies ready to see where you'll be staying?"

"Yes," Audrey said, and brushed past MiShawn.

She didn't follow.

A Building was made up of two cellblocks, each one opening off a long hallway, each one self-contained and blocked by a heavy metal door featuring a narrow window. Mick peered through the window looking into B Block, but saw nothing but wall-to-wall zombies, so he said, "Fuck _that_ ," and went over to A Block. Gazing through, he saw only a few of them moving past the cells. Arms stuck out between bars on either side, leading Mick to surmise that most of the prisoners who died here did so in their cells.

Nodding silently to Derrick, who flanked one side of the door, and then at Marol, who covered the other, Mick opened it with the key and rushed in, Marol and Derrick coming in fast behind him and spreading out. One of the rockers turned, its face painted white with a big black star around his left eye, and came forward, seeming to grin, an abnormally long tongue falling from its mouth. Mick rushed it, and hit it with a sick uppercut, knocking it down. Raising his foot, he brought it down on the bastard's head, which squished like a ripe melon, cemetery juice squirting half way across the cellblock. Three other rockers advanced. Derrick lifted his bow and fired: It slammed into the zombie's eye, and it turned, falling. Marol started after the others, and they turned and tried to flee. She tackled one of them and beat it to death with her bare hands. The other assumed a hobbling run and tried to escape, but Marol went after it, snatching it by its puffy hair and dragging it to the ground.

"Fucking assknocker!" Marol screamed, raining a hailstorm of blows on its head.

Another stumbled out of an open cell and came toward Marol, but turned and went back inside.

Mick followed it. He found the zombie clawing at the barred window over the toilet. It turned, and to his dying day, Mick swore it said, "Oh, I thought you were Marol. She scares me."

It came forward, and Mick jammed the barrel of his Colt through its forehead.

Back in the block, Marol and Derrick had started going from cell to cell, stabbing, beating, and shooting the caged metalheads.

When it was over, they met back at the entrance to the pod. "We did it," Derrick said. "We got this by the ass!"

Indeed they did.

Now, they just had to move the zombies out.


	8. What Morningwood Hides

A block from the courthouse, a motel called the Relax Inn had been converted into apartments. Earl walked Audrey over and gave her a key for room 116. "There're two beds. Not that you and your girlfriend will be needing them."

"She's not my girlfriend."

Earl laughed. "So, why aren't you with the others anymore? Officer Friendly cuff you to something too?"

She told him about the farm. She lied about what she was doing when they left; she said she was sleeping.

"And they didn't come back for you?"

"They couldn't. Metalheads were everywhere."

Earl shrugged. "How was my baby brother?"

"Okay, I guess."

"So he's still alive?"

"As far as I know. Like I said, I haven't seen any of them in a while. They could be anywhere by now."

Earl nodded. "I'd really like to see him again."

"I'm sure he's fine. Mick is a good leader."

Earl chuckled. "Honey, good leaders don't leave you handcuffed to a pipe to chew your own hand off."

"They went back for you. Mick and Derrick. You were already gone."

"What was I supposed to do, hang out there and play a game of Parcheesi?" He shook his head. "Anyway, here's a map of Morningwood. The pantry's on Elm Street. You go down there and they'll give you some food. If you need anything, I'm usually on guard duty or at the courthouse."

When he disappeared into the gathering gloom, she let herself into the room.

"Nice."

The carpet was an ugly blue, and the walls were painted orange, but the sheets were clean and the shower was hot. As the water sluiced over her body, she thought of the Governator: His big, rough hands, his jutting chin, his rock hard biceps.

She wanted him.

Across town, the focal point of her desires stepped through a door marked CLINIC and pulled the shades down behind him. The place was a pet store in the pre-metalhead days, now it served as Morningwood's infirmary. Ted Logan, a government scientist from Jacksonville, set the place up the same day he arrived, and drafted Sadie Glutz, a fifteen-year-old girl Martin was sleeping with, as his nurse. It was to Glutz, who sat behind that counter, that the Governator now spoke: "I want to see Dr. Logan."

Sadie pushed a button on the intercom and said, "Dr. Logan, the Governator's here to see you."

"Send him in," Logan's voice replied.

Sadie smiled. "You can go right in."

Logan's offices were behind a door labeled EMPLOYEES ONLY. The Governator stepped in and shut it behind him.

Logan was standing at a metal table on which rested a human body. He (Logan, not the body) was short and skinny, with wild gray hair and glasses. His white lab coat was splattered with blood and gore.

"Dr. Logan," the Governator greeted.

"I've been expecting you."

"Have you administered the shot yet?"

"No," Logan said. "I was waiting for you."

"Get on with it, then. I have a lot of stuff to do."

Producing a syringe from his coat pocket, Logan stuck it into the arm of the man on the table. He groaned.

"He's not a very good candidate," Logan said mournfully. "He suffered massive head trauma in the crash. Collapsed lung. Broken ribs. It's a wonder he survived at all."

"It can still work, right?"

Logan shrugged. "Maybe. I don't exactly have a large pool of test subjects, so I can't be picky, can I?"

Logan called the stuff "Rioxin." It was, he said, supposed to overhaul the human nervous system, giving the body great strength, stamina, and endurance. "The zombie's bite will no longer kill us," Logan told him on his first day in Morningwood. "A single man could take on a thousand of those things."

During the outbreak, Logan was stationed at the CDC in Atlanta, where he and several others were tasked with creating a vaccine. The place fell in early June, and he and another scientist escaped. The second man, Jenner, died when Logan injected him with the latest version of Rixoin: His body literally swelled to the point of bursting.

Presently, the helicopter pilot jerked, groaned, and tried to sit up, but he was strapped to the table, and couldn't move.

"This is it," Logan said excitedly, rubbing his hands. The Governator watched impassively. Impassively on the outside, at least. On the inside he was giddy. If it worked...

The pilot's eyes flew open, and he started foaming at the mouth. He yanked at his restraints, tearing away large chunks of skin.

"Uh-oh," Logan said.

The Governator noticed that the man's stomach was beginning to swell. His head too.

He knew what that meant.

"Keep trying," he said to the doctor. "I'll be back."

He left the room and closed the door just as the man exploded. Sadie, her eyes wide, looked up. "Another failure?"

"Yes."

From his chambers, Logan wailed. "His spleen went in my mouth!"

Sighing, The Governator left the clinic.

Mick Rimes was just sitting down to a dinner of Van Camp's pork and beans when the pod door clanged open and Marol came in. "Mick!" she cried. "Come here!"

It was after dark, and shadows pooled in the cellblock, dispelled only by the feeble glow of several Coleman lanterns. Though Mick advised her not to, she had left nearly an hour earlier to "explore."

"Can it wait?" he asked, shoveling a spoonful into his mouth.

"No. Come here. _Now_."

Sighing, Mick sat aside his beans. "Don't even _think_ about it," he told Howard, who was almost done with his own dinner.

"What's up?" he asked Marol when they were away from the others.

"I was murkin bitches when I found this."

She opened the door further, revealing two people. A small black woman with frizzy hair and a large black man with muscles on top of his muscle's muscles.

The man nodded. "Hey."

The woman watched him.

Mick opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't find the words.

"They live on another block," Marol explained.

"I'm Flyreese," the man said, offering Mick his hand. "This is my sister, Tasha."

"Hi," Mick said, taking his hand. "I'm Mick Rimes."

"Nice to meet you, Mick," Flyreese said. "Marol says you have other people...a group."

"We have some," Mick said. "Are you looking to join us?"

Flyreese shrugged. "Maybe. The more the merrier, right?" he uttered a big, deep laugh.

Mick found himself liking the man already. "Alright. Well, I have two questions for you."

"Shoot."

"How many metalheads have you killed?"

Flyreese smiled. "Sixty, seventy."

Mick nodded. A good number. "How many people have you killed?"

"Only one."

"Why'd you do it?"

Flyreese thought for a moment. "Well, there was this nigga named Tyrone who owned me some money, so I went callin on his ass..."

Mick held up a hand. "Alright. Alright. You're in."

"Everyone," Mick said to the group. "We have two new members. This is Tasha and Flyreese."

Darkness gathered in the streets of Morningwood: Though there was electricity, many of the streetlamps were out, which worked to MiShawn's advantage.

She had been wandering aimlessly through the town since parting with Audrey earlier in the afternoon. She bumped into Earl outside a café and he told her about the Relax Inn, but she hadn't gone there yet: The thought of arguing further with Audrey depressed her.

Presently, she turned a corner and found herself on a street flanking the easternmost section of the wall. To her right, the backs of buildings huddled in the gloom: Loading docks, trashcans, rear entrances. She started past an open alleyway, but paused and drew back when she heard hushed voices.

"What do you think he did to him?" a man asked.

"I don't know," another replied. She recognized this one. Earl. "Gave him a booster shot?"

"Did you see how he was splattered all over the wall?"

MiShawn poked her head around the corner. A door stood open, allowing a spill of light to fall across the gravel. Two men, abstract figures in the darkness, were loading things into the back of a Jeep.

"I don't ask questions," Earl said, slamming the hatch. "And you shouldn't either. Questions get you in trouble."

"I just never seen nothing like it is all," Earl's lackey replied. "I didn't even know it was possible for a person to blow up like that."

 _Blow up?_ MiShawn thought.

"Just...keep your mouth shut, okay?" Earl said. "This is big. I don't know many of the details but it's important. And no one can know about it."

They were getting into the Jeep now; two doors slammed. A moment later, the engine revved up, and rocks crunched under the tires. When she looked around the corner, the alley was empty. The metal door was closed.

 _This is big...no one can know about it._

MiShawn _knew_ from the moment they hit town that something wasn't right. Now it looked as though she may have found why.

Drawing her sword from its sheath, she hurried down the alley, ducking behind a dumpster when a car passed by. When she reached the door, she tried the handle, but it was locked. Damn. Backing up a step, she swung the sword down, and the handle fell to the ground, the door opening with a rusty squeak. She slipped into the room, felt for a light switch, and turned it on.

What she saw surprised her. Roughly fifteen feet by fifteen feet, the room was crammed with machinery. EKG machines, heart monitors, standing IV stands, other, less nameable things. A desk flanking a door boasted a bank of computers.

In the middle of the floor, a metal gurney covered by a white sheet commanded attention: The fabric brushed the floor. Anything could be underneath.

Switching the sword to her left hand, she knelt and pulled aside the covering.

Empty floor.

Standing, she glanced over at the computers. Putting the sword away, she went over to them.

They were off.

She was about to turn away when something caught her eye. A black, leather bound ledger. She reached out, picked it up, and opened it. The pages were full of neat, spidery handwriting.

 _August 26: Have refined the serum. Hoping against hope that the next subject will not be a total loss like all the others._

 _Later_

 _Injected the patient with the dose. He swelled and popped, just like the others. The GOV brought me a specimen, a man who spoke against him, but he did likewise. Back to the drawing board._

As she grasped the meaning of what she was reading, horror filled her. _Subjects. Serum. Popped._

They were running human experiments!

She _knew_ it.

She tucked the ledger under her arm and turned just as, in the other room, a bell dinged. For a split second its significance was lost on her. Then she realized what it was: The bell above the front door.

Suddenly, muffled voices rose.

Damn it!

She knew in an instant that she wouldn't be able to make it to the door in time: Whoever was coming would catch her. She had to hide. But where?

The gurney!

She started toward it, realized she was still holding the ledger, tossed it back onto the desk, and slid under the gurney just as the doorknob rattled.

"I don't care how many people we have to kill," the Governator said. "I want my super soldiers _now_."

"Soon," another man said. He sounded wiry, nervous; like he was operating on too much coffee and not enough sleep. "I'm so close I can _smell_ it."

"I hope so. I cannot wait forever. And I can't keep giving you people to test it on. Everyone will get suspicious."

"What about those new girls? The black one and the blonde? No one will miss them."

MiShawn bristled.

"They are new. If they go missing it will be even _more_ suspicious."

The other man sighed. "Alright. Alright. We'll talk about it more over dinner, okay?"

"Okay."

The door closed.

Silence reigned.

MiShawn remained under the gurney for fifteen minutes before crawling out. She was certain that she was alone, but there was always the possibility that it was a trap.

The room was empty, however.

She went over to the desk to grab the ledger, but it was gone.

No matter.

She knew now what the Governator was up to.

The only question: How did she stop it?


	9. Taken by The Governator

"You're crazy, you know that?" Audrey said.

She was standing in front of the bathroom mirror brushing her teeth. MiShawn stood in the doorway.

"I'm telling you the truth. They're using people like lab rats."

Audrey shook her head, spit, and put her toothbrush away. "I think you just can't believe that we've _finally_ found a safe place. I think you're afraid to hope, so you make up silly stories..."

"I'm not making it up!" MiShawn said sharply.

"So the Governator is trying to create a master race of super soldiers?" Audrey crossed her arms over her chest. "Is that it?"

"Yes."

Audrey chuckled. "You're a piece of work. Why can't you just accept that this is real, that Morningwood is a nice place?"

"Because it's not."

"Where's your proof?"

MiShawn seethed. "I told you. When I went back to get the notebook it was gone."

"Convenient."

"If you don't believe me..."

"I _don't_ believe you!" Audrey's voice was rising. "You've been down on this place since the moment you laid eyes on it. You've spent the entire day wandering around looking for something to bitch about. You couldn't find anything, so now you're making up science fiction stories about superhuman soldiers and serums that cause people to swell and pop."

MiShawn flared. "And you've been blinded by that robotic freak and his pretty illusion. You didn't let your guard down when we got here; you smashed it into a thousand little pieces, now you're ready to swallow anything. I thought you were smarter than that."

Audrey pushed past her. "I'm going to bed," she said. "I...I just can't take this right now."

"The truth?"

"Your _lies!"_

MiShawn took a deep, shuddery breath. She was close to snatching the bitch up by her hair and screaming on her, but she counted to three and let it pass. She liked Audrey. She had only known her for a short time, but in that time they had bonded...the way soldiers bond on the battlefield.

"I know it sounds crazy," MiShawn said, trying to keep venom from creeping into her voice. "I know. Alright? But I'm telling you the truth. You have to believe me."

Audrey, sitting on the edge of her bed now, shook her head. "I'm sorry, I just don't. I understand you don't want to get your hopes up. I get it. Okay? But you need to relax."

It was no use, MiShawn saw.

Audrey would never believe her.

Mick Rimes woke from a nightmare just past dawn. The others slept soundly, save for Marol, who sat by herself fashioning a necklace from the bones of the metalheads she had killed during her jaunt through the prison.

"We're gonna need supplies," Mick said, sitting next to her. "Food. Camping gear. That kind of thing."

"There's a garage in one the other buildings," she said. "I saw a bus with the keys in the ignition. I don't know if it works but it's something."

Mick nodded. "Good. I'm thinking me and Derrick go early. Get it out of the way and get back. Who knows how far we'll have to go."

The others were beginning to stir now. Berschel was first, Howard next.

"How do you like Flyreese?" Marol asked.

Mick thought about it for a moment. "I like him. Tasha...well, I don't really know her yet."

The previous night they all stayed up late by the light of the lamps, talking and making jokes. Flyreese fit right in. Tasha, on the other hand, was quiet, and barely participated at all.

"You don't know Flyreese either," Marol said.

"Yeah, well, I have a feeling about him."

"Me too."

Fifteen minutes later, Mick went into Derrick's cell and shook him awake: The tracker started and pulled a knife from his leather vest.

"It's just me," Mick said.

"Mick? What are you doin?" he asked sleepily.

"We need to go on a supply run today," Mick said. "Marol says there's a bus we might be able to use. I wanna get out there and get back as quickly as we can."

"Alright," Derrick said, sitting up. "Give me five minutes."

"Meet me on the yard."

Outside, the morning was warm and breezy.

Mick found the garage Marol was talking about. Inside were not one but three buses. Each one had keys hanging from the ignition. He tried the first one, but it didn't start. The second did.

"You ready?" Derrick asked, walking up.

"Let's go."

Ten miles east of the prison, they found a strip mall bordering a shady residential neighborhood composed of leafy trees and comfortable old houses. The biggest store in the shopping center was a Winn Dixie. Next to that was pharmacy and next to _that_ was a Dollar General.

"We'll try here first," Mick said, turning into the parking lot. "Get what we can but be smart about it."

They had seen surprisingly few zombies since leaving the prison. Several stumbled among the abandoned cars dotting the parking lot.

Mick parked the bus in the fire lane running along the front of the Winn Dixie and put it in park: He left the engine running just in case they needed to make a quick getaway.

"We should split up," Derrick said. "It'll be faster that way. You take the pharmacy, I'll take the grocery store."

Mick started to protest, but Derrick was right. "Alright," he said, opening the door. "But be careful."

The zombies, three total, were stumbling their way. Derrick got out, aimed his bow, and fired, taking the closest in the head. Taking out his knife, he finished the remaining two.

"Go," he said over his shoulder.

Nodding, Mick took out his Colt and speed walked to the pharmacy. The doors were locked, but the glass had long ago been broken out. He reached in, unlocked it, and stepped in. Debris littered the floor. In the last days, the place must have been looted...meaning most of the good stuff was probably taken.

Ignoring the middle of the store, he went directly to the back where the prescription medications were kept. As he suspected, most of the good stuff was gone: Oxy, Dilaudid, morphine. He did, however, find aspirin, low level painkillers, and assorted other things. Taking a plastic basket from a rack by the door, he stocked up on as much as he could carry. Done, he brought the goods out to the bus. He was just opening the door to put the basket inside when something poked him in the back of the head.

"Freeze, motherfucker."

MiShawn rose early that morning and left before Audrey had a chance to wake and argue with her. Before leaving, she looked down on her friend's sleeping face, and felt such a sense of loss that she nearly collapsed.

From the motel, she walked south, past the courthouse and toward the clinic. It was barely light yet, and no one moved on the street. Taking up position behind a bench across from the infirmary, she watched for nearly two hours before moving on. Nothing happening. The Governator was probably snug in his bed, and his Frankenstein was probably dreaming evil dreams somewhere across Morningwood.

From the clinic, she made her way back to the courthouse. She stopped and pretended to study an antique store's window display, but she was really watching the reflection of the building across the street.

She wasn't sure what her next move would be. The Governator was obviously using innocent people as lab rats and had to be stopped, but how?

Still undecided, she continued up the street, took a left, and followed the road flanking the courthouse's northern wall. Ahead, a wood stockade fence separated the courthouse grounds from an empty lot. When she was sure she was unobserved, she climbed the fence and dropped into knee high grass. Crouching even though the fence was several feet taller than she was, she followed it until she found a missing board. She knelt and pressed her face to it just as a truck pulled up to the loading dock dominating the courthouses rear, followed by a short blue bus with CENTRAL GEORGIA CORRECTIONAL FACILITY written on the side in yellow. The truck pulled forward and stopped next to a green dumpster. The bus swung around and backed up to the loading dock. Martin and another man got out of the bus and went around the back. Seconds later they reappeared with two handcuffed men, their heads and faces caked with  
blood. "We found 'em at the Winn Dixie," Martin said to someone on the loading dock. The men from the truck joined Martin and the others, and they all disappeared into the courthouse.

Something wasn't right. MiShawn felt it in her bones.

For a moment she wasn't sure what to do. Then, deciding, she slipped through the break in the fence and ran up to the loading dock, ducking to the left of a set of double doors. She waited for a few minutes, and then pressed her face to the narrow glass window. A long, lighted corridor, marble floors, beige walls. Beyond that, a door that looked as though it might lead to a staircase.

She tried the door. It opened easily.

Inside, she eased the door closed behind her and listened: Aside from the whirr of industrial air conditioning units, all was silent.

She started down the hall, but stopped when a door opened down the way. Looking left, right, her heart slamming against her chest, she pushed herself into a shallow alcove and waited.

Footsteps echoing. Voices.

"I want to see them," the Governator said.

"Yes, sir," Martin replied.

Another door closed.

Quiet.

MiShawn poked her head out.

The coast was clear.

Stepping out of the alcove, she drew her sword and started toward the door.

"You're a bastard!" Derrick yelled.

Earl chuckled. "We all do what we gotta do, baby brother." He ran the jagged edge of his hanger-hand down Derrick's face. "These people are my family now."

With that, he slapped Derrick again. "You're hanging out with this asshole who cuffed me to a roof anyway."

"We came back for you," Mick said.

Earl turned on him. "Yeah?" He raised his pitiful prostatic. "That's some real consolation right now _considering I don't have a hand!"_

He raked it across Mick's cheek, drawing blood. "I ought to kill the both of you."

Before he could make good on his promise, however, the door opened and a tall, muscular man entered the room. Clad in black jeans, a black leather jacket, and dark sunglasses, he reminded Mick of that action movie star...Stallone.

"That will be all, Earl," he said in a thick Bavarian accent.

"Yes, sir," Earl said. He shot a dirty look at Mick and then left.

"My name is the Governator," the big man said. "I run this community." He pulled up a chair, turned it backwards, and sat down. "I hear you have a community too. A prison?"

Mick didn't speak. Neither did Derrick.

"I would very much like to see your prison," the Governator went on. "I like the walls. Walls are good."

The door slowly opened behind the German. A thin black woman with dreadlocks slipped silently in, a sword in her hand. She pressed one finger to her lips and approached the Governator.

Lightning fast, the Governator was up and turning on her. The woman was quicker, however, her sword flashing down like quicksilver: Mick watched in amazement as one of the German's arms fell to the floor.

"Ahhhh, you bitch!" he screamed. He smacked her with his remaining hand, and she fell next to the arm. Blood gushed from the stump where the appendage had been. Derrick began struggling with the rope binding his hands. Mick did the same.

"I am going to kill you!" the Governator yelled.

The woman shrieked, and the big man dropped. Craning his neck, Mick saw his leg lying in a pool of blood.

On her feet now, the woman raised her sword and brought it down on the Governator's other arm. The man screamed and collapsed.

Derrick was free now. He unbound Mick's hands.

The woman was on top of the German now, shoving her thumbs into his eyes. He wailed.

The door opened, and a Spanish man poked his head in, his eyes going wide. Like a shot, the woman was up, chasing him.

Mick and Derrick followed her into the hall.

She was on top of the man, hitting him in the face.

An Uzi lay on the ground. Derrick picked it up.

"Hey!"

Behind them, three more guards came around a corner. Derrick raised the Uzi and fired; they jerked, twitched, and fell.

"Come on!" Mick yelled.

"I'll lead you out," the woman said, getting up. "This way."

Mick and Derrick followed her to the stairs. On the first floor, two men with pistols were running toward them. Derrick fired, knocking them down. Mick took their weapons and followed the woman to the door.

"Your bus is there," she said.

"You're staying?" he asked.

An alarm started to ring.

Fear flashed across her face.

"Come with us," Mick said.

A door opened and yelling voices filled the hall.

"Mick!" Derrick yelled.

The woman nodded. "Okay."

Outside, two men were running across the parking lot. Mick raised his pistols and fired, hitting both of them. He pulled open the bus door and climbed behind the wheel. Derrick and the woman followed.

"Hold on," Mick said.

He started the bus and kicked it into drive. He spun the wheel left, cleared the corner of the building, and turned onto slanted Main Street.

At the bottom, the gate.

He hit the gas.

People screamed and jumped out of the way. The guards in the towers opened fire. A round crashed through the windshield, cracking it: Mick ducked but pressed harder on the gas.

He hit the gate going seventy miles an hour, fast enough to knock it from its track and send it skirting away. Bullets pinged off the bus's metal body.

"I'm Mick Rimes, by the way," Mick said. "And this is Derrick."

"I'm MiShawn," the woman replied. "And that was Morningwood."


	10. Run-up to War

When Doctor Ted Logan entered the interrogation room, a shudder of horror ran through him. The Governator lie in a pool of his own blood, his limbs tossed carelessly about like the after effects of a child's grizzly tantrum.

Several people knelt beside him, and when he walked in, Logan could only see the German's face: His gaping eye sockets wept crimson.

"Please," the blonde woman (the new one) sobbed over her shoulder. "Help him."

"Give me room," Logan said, licking his lips.

The others moved aside. The Governator was entirely limbless, a trunk and a head and nothing else.

Kneeling, Logan sat down his bag and opened it. "Can you hear me?" he asked.

"Yes, I can hear you," the Governator said, his voice as flat and robotic as always. "But I cannot see you."

"That's because your eyes have been gouged out."

"MiShawn did this to him," the blonde said, sniffing wetly. "I should have known. She's crazy."

"We can worry about retribution later," Logan said. "All I care about now is saving his life."

Logan donned his stethoscope and pressed it to the Governator's chest. To Logan's astonishment, his heartbeat was slow and steady.

Next, he prodded the ragged stumps where his arms and legs had been. Though they still seeped, the bleeding had largely stopped.

The eyes were the worst. When Logan touched them, the Governator trembled slightly. "That hurts," he said.

Shaking his head, Logan sat down.

"What?" the blonde asked worriedly. "Is he going to be okay?"

Logan nodded. "Yes. In fact, at this point I don't think _anything_ can kill him..."

Mick gathered the others in the A-Block dayroom. When they were all present, sitting around metal tables and looking at him expectantly, he introduced MiShawn.

"Me and Derrick were getting supplies when some people took us," Mick said. "They brought us back to their community and started torturing us."

He paused for dramatic effect. The others looked at him and Derrick, at MiShawn, at each other, fear in their eyes.

"MiShawn saved us."

She nodded.

"These people are bad," Mick said, "and they know where we are, so they'll be coming for us. My guess is they'll come sooner rather than later. We have to be ready. If they do come, I think they'll come from the west. The land is flat and open. If they come they'll come with vehicles. We need to set up a defense. Now."

Fifteen minutes later, they were all busily working along the western wall. Mick's plan was this: They would park two of the buses facing each other just outside the courtyard. In front of those they would dig two foxholes and fortify them with dirt and whatever else they could get their hands on, most likely the metal tables from the dayroom. He would be in one of the foxholes, while others (he hadn't decided who) would be in the other. A couple would be behind each bus. That way they had plenty of cover.

While Mick was drawing up his plans, Berschel sat next to him. "Do you really think these people are going to attack?" he asked.

Mick looked up. "After what MiShawn did to their leader, yes. And with the type of people they are, they'll kill us all since they made the trip."

"Can you be sure all of them are bad? Just because someone's leaders are evil it doesn't mean that _they_ are evil."

Mick shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe, but if the leaders are evil, they can manipulate the people. They can lie to them. Tell them things that aren't true."

"Then why don't we leave? Just give up the prison? We don't have to go to war..."

"Yes we do," Mick said. "This is a place worth fighting for. These walls, the medicine in the infirmary, the food in the cafeteria."

Berschel nodded. "Though I don't like it, I'm in."

Mick grinned.

An hour later, two of the buses faced each other just beyond the courtyard entrance. In front of each, foxholes were being dug. Flyreese and Ben dug one, while Marol and Berschel dug the other. Mick found Derrick in the field before the fence, a posthole digger in one hand and a bag in the other.

"What'cha got there?" Mick asked.

"Punji sticks," Derrick replied, stabbing the ground with the digger. When the hole was two feet by two feet, Derrick knelt down, removed several sharpened sticks from the bag, and stuck them into the hole, which he then covered with grass and leaves. "Hurts like a son of a bitch. The VC used 'em in Vietnam. Smeared 'em with shit so they'd get our boys sick."

Mick nodded.

Elsewhere, the foxholes were done. Mick helped Flyreese and Marol arrange a metal table in front of each. Then they piled all the leftover dirt against them.

"Lookin good," Derrick said, hefting a rocket launcher onto his shoulder.

"Where'd you get that?" Mick asked.

"Found it under one of the bunks."

By nightfall they were done. Mick and Derrick were in one foxhole, while Marol, Flyreese, and MiShawn took the other. Ben, Aggie, and Howard hid behind the bus backing Mick's trench; Bershel and Tasha hid behind the other.

"When do you think they'll come?" Derrick asked, lighting a cigarette.

"I don't know," Mick said. "Tonight or early tomorrow. When they think we'll be off our guard."

Derrick nodded, taking a drag. "That's what I figure, too."

At nine that night, the people of Morningwood gathered in the commons before the courthouse and milled anxiously as Martin Hernandez stood stiffly on a makeshift stage, looking for all the world like he would rather be somewhere else. Torches and burn barrels provided light, and in that flickering glow, Audrey could see fear on the faces of the Morningwood residents.

Many of them knew that something big had happened earlier in the day. Some had seen the bus smashing through the gate, others had heard the gunshots; most had heard whispered rumors that the Governator was dead or near it. They continued about their business like normal, but there was something in the air, a collective worry hanging heavy over the town like smog. Their future was uncertain. They had been attacked.

The people quickly became restless. Some of them started shouting. They wanted answers. A man near Audrey called for the blood of "the invaders."

At nine-twenty, Martin left the stage. People were talking, whispering, their voices creating a great murmuring din.

Finally, Martin and Earl reappeared, carrying something between them. When they sat in down on the stage, facing the multitude, a shocked gasp rose up. The Governator, sans arms and legs, both of his eyes covered with eyepatches, sat placidly in a lawn chair.

Quiet fell over the Morningwoodites.

"Early this morning," the Governator started, his voice rolling over the crowd, "two of our men on a routine supply run were viciously and treacherously attacked. They managed to subdue the assailants and bring them back here."

No one spoke; everyone listened, rapt.

"With the help of a domestic terrorist, they escaped, killing several of our people in the process. They also maimed me."

Domestic terrorist.

MiShawn.

Audrey felt a rush of hot hatred.

"These people are vicious killers. If we let them, they will come back, and they will finish what they started. We must strike them. We must prevent them from destroying what we have worked so hard to build. We must kill them before they kill us!"

A cheer ran through the crowd.

"Anyone who would like to volunteer may report to the armory. We attack at dawn."

Many people went.


	11. Armageddon

They came at sunrise.

Mick was crouched in the foxhole next to Derrick, half asleep, when a strange grinding noise rose in the distance. Derrick, also nodding, snapped awake and stood up.

Shaking the sleep from his brain, Mick did likewise: Soft orange painted the sky.

He didn't see anything.

"They're comin," Derrick said. He picked up his rocket launcher.

"Flyreese!" Mick called.

Flyreese stuck his head up. "I hear it," he said.

Mick looked back toward the fence. He could see headlights now, four sets evenly spaced. The grinding grew louder. Moments later, something emerged from the gloom. Mick squinted.

"Jesus," Derrick breathed. "They have a tank."

The tank crawled closer. On either side of it rolled a pick-up truck and a Jeep. A number of stormtroopers marched along on foot. Mick counted ten of them.

The tank came to a stop mere feet from the fence. Two people crouched on top. Mick raised the binoculars to his eyes and saw the Governator strapped limbless to a lawn chair. Next to him, Earl, on one knee, smoked a cigarette. The filter was tacked to his hanger-hand like bait on a hook.

"Be ready!" Mick called. He looked at the other trench. Marol, MiShawn, and Flyreese were standing tall, their rifles pressed against their shoulders. Mick was crazily reminded of revolutionary war soldiers.

"I have come to make you a deal," the Governator's amplified voice rolled across the land. "I want MiShawn. Give her to me and I will spare you."

Mick looked at MiShawn. She watched him with icy eyes.

"It's a trick," Derrick said.

Mick turned to the tank. If there was a chance that the Governator was telling the truth, Mick thought, he owed it to his people to give MiShawn up.

But then he realized that MiShawn _was_ one of his people; if it weren't for her, he and Derrick would still be in Morningwood, dead or close to it. She had saved him. Now he would save her.

Or die trying.

Cupping his hands to his mouth, Mick shouted, "It's not going down like that!"

A moment of crashing silence followed. From the corner of his eye he could see MiShawn looking at him, gratitude writ across her face.

Finally, the Governator spoke: "It is war then!"

The tank lurched forward and crashed into the fence, which came down with a metallic death cry. Mick raised his rifle and fired: One of the soldiers flanking the tank fell back.

Following his example, the others opened fire too. Earl jerked back and rolled off the tank; one of the pick-ups, which had begun to pace the tank, stopped as the windshield shattered and the driver died.

A few of the Morningwood Army ducked behind the tank and used it as cover. Others knelt next to the parked vehicles and returned fire. Flyreese yelped and fell back. Bullets struck the ground in front of the foxhole, kicking up dirt. Derrick shouldered the rocket launcher and fired: A pickup truck exploded, knocking several people to the ground.

Clear of the fence, the tank crept across the field, its heavy treads chewing the soft earth. Five people followed close to its left, while three covered the right. One of the Jeeps struggled over the fallen fence and swung wide to the left. A man popped up through the sunroof and sprayed the buses: Bullets pinged.

Derrick reloaded his rocket launcher and fired at the Jeep. The round exploded close to its front tire, knocking it over and throwing it into the tank's path. The tank hit it, knocking it aside. The turret, Mick saw, was pivoting.

"Shit!" Derrick cried. Fire leapt from the barrel and the bus backing Flyreese's pit exploded, the concussion knocking Mick to the ground. Berschel. Tasha...

Mick pushed himself up. The tank was twenty feet from the trench. Soldiers ran alongside it. About a half dozen people Mick hadn't seen before were climbing over the fallen fence. Behind them, a massive herd of metalheads shambled forth, drawn by the noise. He took aim and fired. Three of the newcomers fell. Closer, a man stepped into one of the punji pits, crying out in agony as the spears skewered his feet. Marol raked the left flank of the tank with fire, killing one of the invaders, but the second dropped to his knee and returned fire: Marol jerked and spun.

The tank was ten feet away now. MiShawn scrambled out of her trench and retreated. Derrick fired another rocket, this one at the tank. The people running beside it were knocked out of the fight, but the tank itself kept coming. Seeing this, Derrick climbed out and ran. The remaining newcomers were running forward now. Bullets whizzed past Mick's head.

Throwing his rifle down, Mick grabbed one of the grenades he had taken back in Atlanta, pulled the pin, and threw it: It landed next to one of the shock troopers and detonated, ripping his leg off. Mick then clambered out of the foxhole and wiggled under the bus. Bullets hit the ground. The bus.

"Howard!" he cried as he got to his knees on the other side. The boy was sitting with his hands over his ears. Aggie was next to him, weeping as, across the way, the bus her father was stationed behind burned.

Ben, kneeling, fired over the hood.

"Take Howard and run," Mick told Aggie. The woman looked dazedly at him.

"Go!" Ben yelled.

Getting slowly to her feet, the crying woman grabbed Howard's hand and together they ran into the courtyard, disappearing between two buildings. Just then, the tank fired another round, this one slamming into D Building: the wall collapsed in a rocky shower of rubble. Mick got to his feet and ran in the direction Aggie and Howard had gone, turning the corner and nearly colliding with Derrick. Ben got up and fled as the tank neared.

A moment later, the tank slammed into the flaming wreckage of the fallen bus. Gunfire and smoke filled the air.

"What do we do?" Ben asked.

Two stormtroopers appeared in the courtyard then. Mick fired, killing one of them. The other fell as Ben shot, but not before squeezing a final round: It hit Mick in the arm. Pain flared through him.

"I'm gonna end this," Derrick said.

The tank had reached the courtyard now. All Mick could see was its long gun jutting forward.

From around the wreckage of the first burning bus, Flyreese appeared, his rifle rattling.

Derrick pushed past Mick and darted in front of the tank. He pushed the rocket launcher against the turret's yawning maw and fired. The tank shuddered and ground to a halt. Two women came into view. Flyreese shot one and Mick the other.

For a second nothing happened. Gunfire still filled the morning, but it was distant. Mick poked his head around the corner and saw why: A thousand zombies flooded through the fence. The remnants of the Governator's army stood in a tight line ten feet back shooting at them.

"I cannot see. Are we winning?"

The Governator lie face down on the ground next to the tank. His voice was muffled.

"This is very uncomfortable. Can someone move me?"

For the first time since waking in the abandoned hospital so long ago, Mick felt true _hatred_. He shoved his gun into his waistband and went to the German, his fists balled. Their paradise was ruined and it was his fault. The fence was breeched, the buildings were in ruins, and zombies advanced across the open field, the remaining Morningwood soldiers having given up and fled.

"Hello? I would like a status report."

Mick lashed out and kicked the chair; yelping, the Governator rolled over, prone now. "Who did that?"

"Mick Rimes!" Mick said, kicking the chair again.

"Who is that?"

"Me!"

Mick raised his fist and pulled it back.

Just then, something grabbed him. He spun. A metalhead, its face rotted and skeletal, moved in for the kill. Mick punched it, his fist sinking into the cold sludge that was its brain. It died, went limp, and fell to the ground. Behind it, a dozen other metalheads stumbled from D Building's ruined wall, passing though the fire, some of them making it, others going up like torches. Flyreese knelt behind a pile of rubble and opened fire.

It hit Mick then. They hadn't had a chance to clear D Building. The idiot Governator and his stupid tank had freed them.

"Come on!" Derrick yelled.

The zombies were closing in on Flyreese's position. The black man looked back at Derrick, then at Mick, then fled.

Their paradise was _really_ ruined now.

"Are those zombies? I hear zombies."

Mick pulled out his gun, shot the two closest metalheads, and pushed past a third. He ducked around Flyreese's rubble pile and glanced back. From here the tank blocked the Governator, which was just as well: A pack of zombies were falling on him.

"Why do you smell so bad?" he asked. "You need a shower."

Then he screamed.

Mick turned away and ran.

MiShawn watched as the tank drew inexorably closer, its flanks covered by Morningwood soldiers. She raised the rifle to her shoulder and fired: Her round struck the crawling chaos's armored side with a spark, and the closest trooper ducked, aimed, and returned fire, hitting the dirt. Behind her, the bus burned brightly, the heat becoming unbearable. Marol lay on the ground, bleeding from a wound to the chest. Flyreese glanced at her.

The Morningwoodites covering the tank's left fired. _Tat-tat-tat-tat._ The tank was ten feet away now. It was hopeless. They couldn't hold them off in their current positions. They had to retreat.

Shouldering her rifle, MiShawn dropped to her knee and felt for Marol's pulse. She didn't find it. Damn it.

She scrambled out of the foxhole and swung wide around the flaming bus, coming into the courtyard and pressing herself against a low section of wall. She ejected the spent magazine and pulled a fresh one from the satchel on her side. An explosion rang out. Moments later, Derrick darted around the second bus, where Ben, Howard, and Aggie crouched, and ran past her.

Through the entire fight, she had been aiming for the Governator, but his people kept drawing her away. Now, in close quarters, as the tank rolled into the courtyard, she would get man, even if it killed her.

Howard and Aggie ran between two of the buildings and disappeared. Mick followed a moment later, then Ben.

With a screaming metal fury, the tank crashed into one of the buses. MiShawn cocked her gun and held it close.

Someone grabbed her by her hair then and dragged her back, throwing her to the ground, the rifle skitting away.

"You _bitch_!" Audrey shrieked, a Beretta in her right hand. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore cargo pants and a checkered blue-and-white shirt. Her eyes were red and she breathed in deep, sharp gasps. "It was _perfect!"_ she screamed. "It was perfect and _you_ ruined it!"

She kicked MiShawn in the ribs. A bombblast of agony detonated in her center. She coughed, rolled over, and tried to get to her feet, but Audrey kicked her again, this time square in the stomach. The breath rushed out of her, and the world went gray.

"You stupid, dirty _cunt!_ You couldn't give up your morals for safety. You _had_ to be the hero. Well guess what: In this story, the hero dies!"

MiShawn rolled onto her back. Audrey was standing over her, pointing the gun directly at her face.

"Audrey..." MiShawn managed. "Listen to me."

"No!" Audrey cocked the gun. "It's over, you..."

A shot rang out: MiShawn watched in horror as one of Audrey's eyes exploded from her head in a shower of gore.

... "whore..." she said, her face going white and her remaining eye going wide. "Bitch."

She fell limply to the concrete. Marol stepped forward, a pistol clutched in her hands.

Heart pounding, MiShawn nodded her thanks.

Flyreese climbed the fence bordering the western recreation yard and scrambled over, the barbed wire lining the top ripping his hands and stomach to shreds. Screaming, he let go and fell to the tall, soft grass.

Gunshots echoed from the prison. He got up and started into the forest. As he did, he cried...for Tasha, for himself, for the prison.

Derrick got to the main gate, realized he didn't have a key for the padlock, and cussed. He looked back, saw a dozen zombies stumbling after him, and threw the rocket launcher to the ground. It was out of shells, anyway.

Taking out his Glock, he aimed and fired at the padlock: Ping, sparks. It fell to the ground, and he pulled the gate to one side. He looked back once more, didn't see anyone coming, and fled up the dirt road. Soon, when he looked back, all he could see was smoke...rising above the trees.

Mick climbed into one of the guard towers and locked the door behind him. From here, he could see nothing but zombies wandering among the buildings. Even if they could regroup, they would never be able to take the prison again. The fence was ruined, anyway. What point was there?

On the balcony, Mick climbed hand-over-hand down the wall. At one point his wrist gave way and he fell, landing hard on his right foot. Pain snaked up his leg, and he screamed.

Getting to his feet, he saw two zombies moving toward him through the thick grass. He fired, killing one and hitting the other in the chest, knocking it down. He then pushed himself into the brush, each step a misery. Later, he found himself on a wooded ridge overlooking the prison. It might have even been the one they first saw it from. Smoke and fire rose into the air. Zombies waddled through the courtyard. There was the tank, the burning bus, the massive hole in the fence, the Governator's other vehicles scattered across the field.

Shaking his head, he turned away and started on.

The survivors of the prison assault scattered to the wind. Some east, some west, all to an uncertain fate.


	12. Scattered to the Wind

Mick Rimes stumbled, fell, got drunkenly back to his feet, and cast a worried glance over his shoulder. Six metalheads, clad in denim jackets and mullets (one wore a bloodstained Lynyrd Skynyrd band T) shambled after, fifteen feet away if they were a pace. Beyond the dense foliage flanking the bottom of the hill, thick black smoke rose into the air.

His ankle, which he sprained (maybe even broke) jumping from the guard tower ached monstrously. The gunshot wound didn't feel too good either.

The hill continued to climb before him, the occasional pine tree dotting the sickly brown earth. He stepped wrong, and a jolt of agony shot through his body: He hissed through clenched teeth and sagged against a tree trunk, suddenly weak.

Sensing that he was whipped, the metalheads picked up their pace, groaning excitedly.

Panting, Mick turned around, his back against the tree, and pulled out his revolver. He held it up, the gun seeming to weigh a thousand pounds, and fired: The round took one of the zombies in the chest, knocking him back. He fired again: The recoil almost broke his arm, and he sank to his ass. The shot went wild.

 _This is it,_ he thought, and a strange calmness descended over him. This was it, the end...he was going to die.

The metalheads were closing in, so close he could smell their putrid odor.

 _Howard,_ he thought, sticking the gun into his mouth, _I'm sorry._

Mick pulled the trigger.

 _BLAM!_

 _Don't look back,_ Derrick thought as he slowed to a fast walk. _Don't look back or you'll turn to salt._

Derrick didn't believe in God, but when he was a kid his parents made him go to Sunday School, so he knew the Bible fairly well: It was Lot's wife who turned to salt on looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah. That story always disturbed him. What was she supposed to have seen?

In _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ Nazis opened the Ark of the Covenant (which held the original stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were etched, if he remembered correctly), and a bunch of spirits came out and melted some guy's face. Bet he wished he turned to salt instead.

Derrick couldn't help it.

He looked back.

The road back to the prison was fairly straight for most of a mile before bending sharply to the left. Over the trees, he could see just a hint of smoke. How far had he gone? A couple miles at least. If he was closer he'd see it better, right? What about the others? Ben? Marol? Mick?

Something rose in his belly then, a feeling he wasn't entirely familiar with; it took him a moment to realize that it was concern.

Concern for others.

For his entire life, it had been him and Earl against the world. No one else mattered. Just his bother. His mentor. His protector.

But now, thinking of the others, on foot and on their own...he fucking _cared_ about them.

And that scared the shit out of him.

He could make it on his own easy. He was a good hunter, tracker, and outdoorsman. Without the others slowing him down, he'd _thrive._

But he didn't want to. He _liked_ the others. He liked Ben, he liked Mick, he liked Howard and Aggie and Marol and all of them.

Damn it. He caught the feels. Ew.

Sighing, he shook his head and started back toward the prison.

The bushes along the right side of the road rustled; he turned just in time to see a blur. The man tackled him and drove him to the ground; the wind rushed out of him.

As quick as lightning, the man was on top of him, his fist balled and cocked, his other fist holding a handful of his (Derrick's) shirt. Well, it wasn't really a handful. It was more like a hookful. Or a coathanger full.

Earl.

Panting and slathered in sweat, his naked arms crisscrossed with scars and abrasions no doubt sustained from briars and brambles, Earl straddled Derrick's chest for several long seconds, his fist frozen.

Then Derrick punched him in the nose and he toppled over with an _umph._ Derrick jumped to his feet, pulled back one foot, and kicked Earl in the side; the latter man cried out.

"Wait...stop...!"

Derrick kicked him again. He realized after the third and fourth kick that he was _angry_ , more angry than he had ever been in his life; the rage came unexpectedly, shocking him, but he went with it.

"Baby brother, stop!"

Derrick was hyperventilating now. He pulled back his foot one last time, and Earl, moving fast, grabbed his leg and pulled; Derrick went down.

"I just...want to...talk," Earl forced between gasps of breath.

"Get off me!" Derrick screamed. Earl was still holding his foot.

Earl let go and Derrick got back up. "I should kill you!" Derrick raged.

"Look," Earl said, holding up his hands in a supplicating gesture, "I..."

"Look at this!"

Derrick pointed to the angry pink wound on his cheek; the one left by Earl's stupid coathanger. "You did this! You tortured me and Mick!"

"I was gonna help you!" Earl said, "honest! I was gonna tell the Governator you flipped. I had to be tough. If he knew you were my brother he wouldn't have trusted me. But..."

"Away from me," Derrick said, but something about the look in his brother's eyes...the earnest set of his face...gave him pause.

"I swear on mama's grave I was gonna help you," Earl pleaded. "And if he didn't believe me I was gonna come get you and go. I swear. You gotta believe me."

The anger Derrick had felt only a moment before was suddenly gone.

Still holding his hands up, Earl got shakily to his feet. "I promise you. I wouldn't have let them hurt you."

"You did a pretty good job of it yourself."

Earl winced. "I'm sorry. I only came to get you. If I had to kill The Governator, I was gonna. Alright?"

"What about Mick? Were you gonna leave him to die?"

Earl blinked. "Yeah."

Derrick shook his head and turned away.

"He left me handcuffed to a roof!"

"We came _back_ for you," Derrick said, spinning to face his brother. "We came back and you were gone."

"What would you have done?"

"I wouldn't have been a dick and got myself handcuffed in the first place."

Earl chuckled sardonically. "That nigger..."

"Yo Dawg," Derrick corrected.

"Lil Dawg, Yo Dawg...whatever he called himself. He..."

Derrick held up a hand. "I don't have time for this. My friends are in trouble thanks to you and your boyfriend. I have to help them."

Derrick started back down the road, a thousand different emotions roiling in his stomach.

"Let me help," Earl said.

Derrick continued on.

"Let me help. I want to."

"Well, come on if you're comin."

Derrick didn't look back until he reached the front gate.

Earl was there.

Marol had walked nearly ten miles before she realized what she was doing: When she came awake, she was crossing a low concrete bridge over a creek flanked by tangled underbrush. Ahead, a brown UPS truck lie lengthwise across the road; big black birds pecked at a prone body, offering up strange and shrill praise to the God of Carrion.

For a moment, she was completely disoriented. She looked around, didn't recognize what was behind her, and scratched her head.

She thought back to her last cognizant memory: Standing over MiShawn back at the prison, the gun still clutched in her hands. The blonde woman lie dead on the ground, and she remembered being surprised that it was Audrey; everyone thought she was dead, but she somehow hooked up with that Governator asshole. Huh. Funny the directions life takes you in.

After that...nothing.

Though she didn't like to admit it, even to herself, she wasn't a slab of stone. She had thoughts and feelings, and on finding the prison, the main thing she felt was _hope:_ Hope that they would be safe from the metalheads, hope that they could start a new life, hope that they could reestablish some sort of normalcy.

This morning, she watched as those hopes were dashed. When the tank rolled over the fence, she knew...

But as the fighting intensified, her horror melted away. She was calm. Cool. Collected.

 _Shock,_ she thought, and realized that she _was_ cold (a symptom of shock). She hugged herself. She must have gone into shock and wandered off. She had to get back and find the others!

She started back the way she had come, but froze when she saw a glint of light in the distance. Sunlight reflecting off metal.

A car was coming.

Not a car, a _Jeep._

Just like the kind that had stormed the prison.

Moving without thought, she ducked off the highway and into the bushes.

The Jeep came to a sudden stop, its tires screeching on the asphalt. Car doors slammed. "He went that way!"

Marol fought her way through the snarled overgrowth lining the creek. She looked back, saw a flash of movement, and threw herself to the ground just as gunfire ripped through the foliage.

The shooting lasted only a minute, but to her it seemed to go on forever, bits of bullet chewed leaves and grass raining down on her.

When it stopped, she was shaking...fucking _shaking_ , her heart pounding so hard against her ribs that she thought she might black out.

"Did you get him?" a voice asked.

"I think so," the shooter replied.

"Well go check!"

Marol's heart jumped into her throat. Suddenly she didn't feel like a two-hundred plus pound musclehead; she felt like the weak little girl she once was, all soft and defenseless. She imagined popping up and snapping the bastard's neck when he got too close, but she didn't think she could. Not now. Maybe not ever.

"Uhhh...yeah, I got him. Let's go. It's too thick."

"Whatever."

Marol listened as the two men got back into their Jeep, slammed their doors, and sped off. The day was silent save for the buzzing of bugs, but she could still hear the ringing of the gunfire in her head.

Her stomach lurched, and she puked.

Then came the tears.

 _What's wrong with me?_

MiShawn walked calmly through the prison grounds, her sword in her hand. A metalhead shambled at her from the entrance to one of the buildings, and she cut the top of its head off the way one might swat a fly.

 _Audrey._

The image of the beautiful blonde standing over her with sheer hatred in her eyes haunted her. She tried to remember the sweet, smiling girl she had met... (when...? Two months ago? Three?), but she could only see the snarling she-bitch, speaking curses even though her brain was scrambled and her eye hung down her face from its stalk.

MiShawn shivered.

After Marol killed Audrey, she wandered aimlessly off, leaving MiShawn alone on the ground, her vendetta against the Governator forgotten. Even though Audrey probably didn't deserve it, MiShawn scooped her into her arms and held her head to her chest as she wept.

She had loved the blonde like a sister. Now she was gone, her memory forever tainted...thanks to that bastard.

Rage filled MiShawn then, and she set out to find the German.

Which she did.

He lie next to the smoking tank, still strapped into his lawn chair, his body picked clean of every scrap, bit, and morsel of flesh.

The metalheads who had eaten him were gone, moved on to the next meal.

Disappointment filled her then. He was dead...beyond her retribution. Lucky son of a fuck.

She turned to go but stopped when he spoke.

"That was very painful," he said, his voice, high and eerie, issuing through torn vocal cords. "I am okay, though. Have we won yet?"

MiShawn turned and kicked the bastard's skull like a football: It rolled down the hill and came to a rest against the front tire of the remaining bus, the one Ben and Aggie had hidden behind.

MiShawn followed it.

"Was that you, Mick Rimes?" the Governator asked.

Trembling, MiShawn raised her sword and brought it down, stabbing the skull directly through the forehead.

"Stop it, Mick!"

" _Why won't you die?"_

She lifted her foot and brought it down on the skull: It shattered beneath her boot. She stomped it again and again, grinding the broken bits into the dirt. She was crying but she didn't care.

When she was finally done, he was silent.

Now, as she reached the main gate, which stood open, she wondered briefly if the Governator actually _had_ spoken to her.

Maybe it was in her mind. Maybe she was crazy.

Who cared?

She was just passing through the gate when Derrick appeared, looking over his shoulder.

A moment later, Earl followed.

MiShawn stiffened.

Derrick turned, saw her, and started.

"Where is everyone?"

"I don't know. What's _he_ doing here?"

Derrick glanced at Earl.

"He's helping."

Earl nodded, leering. "I'm helping...Shaniqua."

MiShawn raised her sword, but before she could get at the bastard, Derrick had already spun and punched him in the lip; now the prick was lying in the dust, coughing.

"She's my _friend,_ " Derrick said.

"I'm sorry," Earl replied, sitting up. "I didn't mean anything by it."

"You best _watch_ yourself," MiShawn told him. "I'm not in the mood."

Earl glared at her, but said nothing.

"I think I saw Ben and Mick run that way," MiShawn said to Derrick, nodding toward the western fence.

"They're probably in the hills. What about Marol?"

"I didn't see which way she went."

Derrick nodded. "Alright. Let's go."


	13. Night

Mick Rimes put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

 _BLAM!_

The closest zombie fell over, dead.

Mick pulled the trigger again.

 _BLAM!_

The second fell forward and hit the ground.

 _How am I doing that?_

Mick pulled the trigger one more time.

 _Click._

A pause.

 _BLAM!_

Ben and Howard appeared from the forest. Aggie covered the rear with an AR-15.

"Dad!" Howard yelled.

 _It was empty the whole time,_ Mick thought.

He smiled.

And passed out.

Night fell languidly over the Georgia hill country. MiShawn threw a log onto the fire and sank to the ground. Derrick quietly dressed a rabbit he had killed with his bow. Earl, who hadn't spoken since his brother hit him, perched sullenly on a log, smoking a cigarette and staring into the flickering flame.

Since leaving the prison, they had met only three metalheads, not counting the dead ones scattered across the hillside.

"Who was it?" Derrick had asked.

He was referring to the gunshot, which they had all heard and followed. The zombie carcasses were fresh; one of the others had to have come through recently.

"Who knows?" MiShawn responded.

Derrick knelt down and fondled one of the metalhead's genitals. "Been dead less than ten minutes," he said.

Presently, Derrick finished with the rabbit and sheathed his knife. "There ain't much," he said, attaching it to a stick. "Ya'll can eat. I ain't hungry."

MiShawn opened her mouth to say that she, too, was not hungry, but lacked the energy to even speak. The horrors of the day had drained her, and right now all she wanted to do was escape into sleep.

Earl finished with his cigarette and flicked it into the fire, then got up.

"Where you goin?" Derrick asked.

"To take a leak, mother. Wanna hold it for me?"

Derrick didn't respond.

When Earl was gone, MiShawn sighed. "He's a peach."

"That ain't all he is," Derrick said, sticking the rabbit over the fire. MiShawn sensed that he wanted to say more, to open up, but instead he leaned against a log he had dragged from the woods and sighed.

"You think we'll find 'em?" he asked.

For a moment she didn't reply. To be honest, she didn't know. She knew that Mick and the others were strong, but even the strongest die sometimes.

"I think so," she said, more to ease Derrick's mind than because she actually believed it.

Derrick nodded but didn't look assured.

Earl came out of the woods and took his seat.

When the rabbit was done, Derrick took it off the spit and divided it two ways. He handed one hunk to MiShawn, but she shook her head.

"More for you," Derrick grunted as he handed both halves to Earl.

Without speaking, Earl took the meat and shoved it into his mouth; his lips smacked greedily, bits of flesh falling from his working maw.

"Could you chew with your mouth closed, please?" MiShawn asked.

Earl shot her a dirty look but closed his mouth.

Somewhere, a wolf howled, its lonely song rising high into the night. MiShawn looked overhead: A full moon rode the sky.

"I'll take first watch," Derrick said.

As dusk fell across the land, Marol left Route 26 just over the Upson County line. She had been on the road since emerging from the wilds along the creek, and her back hurt so bad she would have collapsed by the side of the road if it weren't for the rockers. For a while after the encounter, she had walked down the center line, weaving in and out of stalled traffic wherever it appeared, but being out in the open bothered her, so she took to the forest, taking great pains to keep the highway in sight.

Picking her way through the woodland, Marol tried and failed to rid herself of the anxiety she had had since coming awake on the road. She jumped at every noise; shuddered at every gust of wind; and found herself trembling whenever she stopped to rest. At one point, in the heat of the day, she lapsed into a fevered doze, and dreamed that she was back at the prison: The tank was rolling toward her and she was trapped in the foxhole. Mick was dead, she somehow knew; so were Ben, Derrick, Howard, Aggie, and all the rest; she was alone...save for the Governator and his forces.

When the tank reached her, she screamed, and woke herself up just as a metalhead shambled up the hill toward her. Her heart seized. Seeing her, it paused, a look of uncertainty crossing its face. They locked eyes, and for a full two minutes they stared at each other.

" _You aren't so tough,"_ it said, and came forward.

She was frozen in terror.

 _Kill it! Rip its head off! Now!_

Instead she got up and ran.

Now, five hours later, she walked through the streets of a dead town, past an empty park. The windows in all the houses lining the street were dark and watery, and a chill passed through her as she imagined _things_ peering out at her. A gust of wind swept up the avenue, and somewhere something banged: She jumped and cried out.

Three blocks over, she stumbled over the town police station, a squat brick building on a corner. The black and white at the curb was marked THOMASTON P.D. She knew she had seen Thomaston on a map of the area, but couldn't remember where it was in relation to the prison. Upson County, she believed, bordered Kirkman County, where the prison was. Or was it Allred County? Jesus, she couldn't even _think_ straight. She needed sleep; maybe a solid eight hours would reset her circuits.

Figuring the police station was as good a place as any, she tried the front door, but it was locked. Shit. Looking around to make sure no rockers were coming, she went around the back of the building and found another door. She tried it.

Unlocked.

Casting a glance over her shoulder, she slipped into the building and pulled the door silently closed behind her.

For a long moment, she stood by the door, intimidated by the darkness. She held her hand two inches from her face but couldn't see it. Yeah. It's like that.

Finally, the fear of something passing by and seeing her through the glass door pushed her own; breathing hard, heart racing, she fumbled her way down the hall.

Water dripped somewhere unseen, and the monotonous splash took on an odious tone, like voices in the night.

What if something moaned? What if a long, hollow moan rose in the darkness? What if a white face appeared from the darkness, cackling? What if she heard a door slowly and creakily opening and shuffling footfalls? What if something reached out and grabbed her, its hand cold and hooked?

She was hyperventilating now. She bumped into something and fell: A clatter rang through the darkness. God, if something was here it heard her; it knew she was there!

Struggling back to her feet, she spun and started the way she had come, first walking then running: A wall came out of nowhere and hit her, sending her back to the floor. Her terror was overwhelming now. She had to get out of here; if she didn't she would go crazy.

Back on her feet, she felt along the wall, her questing fingers touching only unbroken concrete. Where was she? Jesus Christ, where was she?

Her right hand found an opening, and she slipped through it: At the end of a long, dark tunnel, she glimpsed moonlight, and ran toward it, exploding into the night in a flurry of panic.

For a long time, she crouched by the door, shaking and trying to catch her breath. When the tears came, they were hot and painful.

It was almost an hour before she had herself under control; calm (or as close to it as she would get this night), she left the police station and, three blocks later, slipped under someone's back porch.

She was alone.

And safe.

And hidden.


	14. Termite Hills, Ho!

**It's been so long since I updated this, sorry, everyone. I promise I'll post the rest in a more timely fashion.**

* * *

He came slowly and groggily awake in the thin light of dawn, his mind swimming and his body aching. He blinked his blurry eyes, and the world swam into focus: He was in a bedroom, the walls painted dull brown and dotted with framed photographs. A kerosene lamp sat on the nightstand, its dim glow chasing shadows into the corners.

He tried to turn over, but a red hot bolt of pain shot up his leg, and he hissed over clenched teeth.

"Mick?"

Ben was sitting in a kitchen chair by the bed, his eyes puffy with sleep. Aggie and Howard were asleep on a makeshift cot composed of comforters spread out on the floor.

"Mick?"

Mick opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't. His lips were dry and his throat was tacky.

"Water," he finally managed to croak.

"Yeah," Ben said, sitting up straighter. He grabbed a canteen off the nightstand, unscrewed the lid, and held it to Mick's lips. The water was warm and slimy and good.

Mick drank so much his stomach rolled.

"Take it easy," Ben said, taking back the canteen. "You don't want to get sick."

"Where are we?"

"A town called Lincoln Park," Ben said. "About five miles from the prison."

Mick flopped his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. They were heavy and achy.

"Have you seen any of the others?"

"No," Ben said. "But when I went out for supplies I saw a couple Jeeps sweeping the sides of the road with spotlights."

Mick opened his eyes. "Jeeps?"

"The Governator's men. I think."

There _were_ some left at the prison, Mick remembered. And it made sense that there would be some still in Morningwood.

"It's not over," Mick said.

"It will be tomorrow," Ben said. "There's a railroad close by that goes east into Alabama before turning north. If we follow that we should be out of the area pretty quick. How's the leg?"

"Hurts."

"That's okay. I have a plan."

Ben's "plan" was a shopping cart he'd lifted from Piggly-Wiggly. Ben and Howard helped him in and then piled all of their supplies on top of him. "I know it's cramped," Ben said, "but it's either that or crawl."

"I'm fine," Mick said.

Ben pushed and Howard and Aggie flanked either side.

"You should have seen it, dad, I killed three zombies!"

"Good job," Mick said, feeling a genuine rush of pride. He mussed the boy's hair.

"Your little Harpo is a regular marksman," Aggie said.

"It's Howard," Howard corrected.

They worked their way south through the center of town: A stately brick courthouse faced a grassy commons dotted with benches, fountains, and statues of Civil War heroes. The majority of Lincoln Park covered a massive hilltop. Below, beyond the railroad, Route 26 continued south past farms and tumbledown buildings. Trees flanked the tracks, providing the perfect screen.

At the crossing, Howard helped Ben get the cart onto the tracks.

"What's that?" Aggie asked.

Mick, who had been talking to Howard, looked in the direction the woman was pointing. Down the tracks maybe fifty feet, a large sign had been planted into the ground. From here all Mick could see was that the entire bottom half was taken up by a detailed map, the type of which you'd find in an Atlas.

"I don't know," Mick said. "Roll me over."

Standing before the sign, Mick read the legend, scrawled in black marker: "TERMITE HILLS. THOSE WHO GET HERE STAY HERE MUHAHAHAHAHAHA. FOOD. SUPPLIES. SHELTER."

Someone had drawn directions on the map. The rail line was shaded black. A red dot was marked YOU ARE HERE.

"That's only twenty-five miles," Ben said, looking at Mick excitedly.

Mick's brow furrowed. He read the words again. Food. Supplies. Shelter.

"I don't know," he said, "after Morningwood..."

"Mick...we're out in the open. We have almost nothing. We're sitting ducks for the metalheads _and_ the Governator's people. We _need_ this."

Food. Shelter. Supplies.

"Isn't this what we've been looking for?"

Yes. Actually, it was. Before the prison (it seemed like a lifetime ago but had barely been five days...if that), they had been adrift on the highway, searching endlessly for home.

"What if it's not there anymore?" Mick asked. "What if it's overrun?"

"We don't have much of a choice," Aggie said. "We have to at least _try._ "

Mick sighed. "Alright. Termite Hills, here we come."

* * *

They set off at dawn, moving uphill, MiShawn in the lead and Derrick in the rear, his bow at the ready.

MiShawn had slept poorly the night before, her mind haunted by images of Audrey. In one of her dreams, Marol's bullet didn't kill her; she simply stood there, talking as though nothing had happened while globs of her brain oozed wetly from her ruined eye.

At eight that morning, they came to Route 26, a narrow, curvy highway running along the tops of the higher hills. Standing on the gravel shoulder, MiShawn had a sweeping view of the world below: Rolling forest, silver rivers, roadways, farmsteads, and _waaay_ off in the distance, so small she could barely see them, the prison's guard towers, keeping eternal watch. Thin white smoke still drifted into the air.

"No hitchhiking," Earl said.

MiShawn turned. A large green sign with white lettering flanked the right side of the road. STATE PRISON. DO NOT PICK UP HITCHHIKERS.

No one replied.

"Where now?" Derrick asked.

MiShawn sighed as she looked both ways along the road. She was certain that whoever had fired the shots had come this way, as was Derrick, an experienced tracker, but...

"Bingo," Derrick said.

He dropped to one knee before a skidmark on the asphalt, ran his finger along it, and then shoved the finger into his mouth.

"Less than twenty-four hours old."

"Which way?"

"South," Derrick said. "The treads are pointing south." He tossed his hair.

"Alright," MiShawn said, "let's go south."

They followed Route 26 for the next two hours. At one point the highway was clogged with wrecked vehicles, and they were forced to scramble over.

After leaving the highlands, 26 twists and turns for nearly ten miles before entering the town of Lincoln Park. At several points, rail tracks cross the pavement. Five miles from Lincoln Park, as they were crossing their third set of train tracks that day, MiShawn spotted something nailed to a tree, maybe thirty feet away.

"What's that?"

Derrick stopped, squinted his eyes. "It's a sign," he said. "TERMITE HILLS. THOSE WHO GET HERE STAY HERE MUHAHAHAHAHA. FOOD. SHELTER. SUPPLIES."

MiShawn went to it.

A map was drawn on a piece of cardboard. The rail line connected directly with Termite Hills, twenty-three miles hence.

"Maybe that's where the others went," MiShawn said.

"If they saw the signs," Earl pointed out.

"They may have," Derrick said. "There are a dozen rail lines around here. If every crossing has a sign it'd be pretty hard to miss."

MiShawn _knew_ that Termite Hills was where they needed to go. She didn't know _how_ she knew, but she did; knew it as well as she knew her own name.

She told Derrick and Earl.

"Look, I said I'd help you find your friends," Earl said to his brother, "I didn't say anything about going thirty miles out of my way on a lick and a promise. Morningwood is less than ten miles away. We got a wall, food, and power."

"Then go," Derrick said, and started down the tracks, tossing his hair.

"Bye," MiShawn said, following; as she passed Earl she shoulder checked his bitch ass.

"Fine," Earl sighed, and started after them.

* * *

Marol woke from a nightmare she couldn't remember shortly past dawn: Birds chirruped gaily from treetops, and thick morning dew coted the grass.

For a long time, she lie where she had fallen asleep the night before, pressed against the house, as far away from the edge of the porch as she could get. Her legs, drawn to her chest, ached, but she couldn't move until she knew nothing would hear her.

Closing her eyes, she listened to the day, trying to detect the slightest out-of-place movement, but heard none.

Nevertheless, her heart throbbed dully in her chest, and the thought of leaving the safety of her little Hobbit hole sent a shiver down her spine.

 _You can't stay here forever,_ she told herself.

 _I fucking know that, dipshit._

Still, the prospect of crawling into the world terrified her.

 _Suck it_ up! _You're better than this!_

No. No she wasn't. She only _thought_ she was, had let herself _believe_ that she was. Years ago, in another life, she had been a small, mousy woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and weak, twig-like limbs; she looked like a spaghetti noodle with other spaghetti noodles for arms and legs. She was also shy, quiet, and when she married Ted Peters, it was clear who wore the pants in the relationship.

Ted was a big, strong man with bulging arms and a permanent scowl tattooed onto his craggy face. He liked to drink, and when he got drunk, he liked smacking her around. At first it was a shove here and there. After ten years it was a quick, sharp punch to the guts if she didn't have supper on the table by the time he got home.

For nearly fifteen years she put up with his stupid shit, lying to the doctors for him ( _oh, I fell_ ), bailing him out of jail when he got into fights at the bar. Finally, she said fuck this and started hitting the gym. For two years she ate nothing but red meat, steroids, testosterone pills, and protein supplements. By the end of it all she was fucking cut, and her new bulk gave her the confidence she needed to stop being a little bitch. By the time the dead started to walk, it was _Ted_ telling the doctors he fell down the stairs.

But it was all a lie, an illusion. She was weak; always had been, always would be.

She couldn't go on. She was a blubbering jellyfish.

No. She _had_ to go on. If she did then she would die like a fucking punk ass, pussy ass bitch. Fuck that.

Trembling, she crawled out into the sunlight.

It was warm on her skin.

Thirty minutes later, as she was crossing the railroad tracks which define Thomaston's southern edge, she saw a sign. Not a metaphorical one. No. A _real_ sign.

TERMITE HILLS. THOSE WHO GET HERE STAY HERE MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Below was a map. Marol studied it and started walking, sure that as long as she got to Termite Hills, all of her problems would be solved.

* * *

 _This is it; your black ass is done!_

Flyreese gripped the crowbar tighter and turned 360 degrees. All around him, metalheads were closing in, their arms outstretched and their hands grasping for him.

Since leaving the prison, Flyreese had been travelling down the center of US14, a narrow highway bordered by dense forest on both sides. He had no particular destination in mind; he just walked, letting the grief over his sister's death consume him. He met zombies along the way, and when they came he killed them. This morning, just over the Macon county line, he was shambling along when suddenly, metalheads started coming out of the woods like ants. He was surrounded before he could escape. Now, they were everywhere, with more showing up by the minute. Pretty soon he was gonna be an itty bitty pile of bones.

One of the metalheads broke from the pack and staggered toward him. Screaming in primal fury/terror, Flyreese swung the crowbar, connecting with its head and knocking it down. Emboldened, the others surged forward as one. Flyreese went to swing, but without warning, the roar of gunfire filled the day. Spinning, Flyreese saw an olive green troop transport coming up fast behind him, crushing zombies under its big tires. A woman stood behind the machine gun mounted to the truck's roof.

Heart pounding, Flyreese ducked. Body parts and bits of rotten flesh rained down over him; a hot brass shell casing hit him in the head, and he screamed out, momentarily believing that he had been shot.

When the gun fell silent, Flyreese opened his eyes and got to his feet. The woman jumped down from the mount and approached. She was slim, Hispanic, and wore a pair of short shorts and a plaid shirt tied just above her taunt stomach. She looked like a twelve-year-old comic nerd's wet dream.

The driver side door swung open, and a man got out. Flyreese thought of him as a man, but it would be closer to the truth to call him a giant. Standing 6'6, maybe more, and so muscular it looked painful, the man wore a pair of green cargo pants and a black tanktop. His hair was long and red, flowing over his broad shoulders. The passenger side door opened then, and another man appeared, this one looking just as strange. He was pudgy and middle aged with a droopy, hound dog face. He wore tight black leather pants, a studded leather jacket, a spike collar, and a Mohawk haircut, the points of which looked so sharp Flyreese couldn't help but think of them as horns.

"You are a very lucky man," the red-headed monster said, his Scandinavian accent comically thick. "You would have died if it weren't for us."

Flyreese, still struggling to catch his breath, licked his lips and nodded. "Thank you," he said. "I'm Flyreese."

"I am Olaf," the redhead said. "The girl is Rosa and the man is Eubanks."

"How's it hanging, yo?" Eubanks said, throwing up some stupid faux-gang sign. His voice was sleepy and droning. Flyreese thought of that teacher in _Ferris Bueller's Day Off._ Ben Sines? Ben Stine?

"Hi," Rosa said, coming forward, her hand proffered. She walked with an exaggerated swish of her hips.

"We are on our way to Washington," Olaf said. "If you would like to come you are more than welcome."

"Washington?" Flyreese asked. "Why?"

"Eubanks is a government scientist," Rosa said. "He knows how this all started and he knows how to end it."

" _You're_ a scientist?" Flyreese asked incredulously.

"I dress like this so people won't suspect my titanic genius."

Flyreese shook his head.

"You are coming, no?" Olaf asked. "We have a long trip ahead."

For the first time since watching his sister go up in flames the morning before, Flyreese thought of Mick and the others.

"Look," he said. "I have people out there. Friends. I gotta find them."

"There is no time for that," Olaf said. "We must go now."

Flyreese licked his lips. "They have supplies," he lied. "Guns. Medicine. Food. Please."

Rosa looked at Olaf; the redhead stroked his chin, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Olaf...we _need_ supplies."

"I know we do," Olaf snapped. "Where are they? Are they at Termite Hills?"

Flyreese cocked his head. "Where?"

"There are signs by all the railroad crossings," Eubanks explained. "Advertising a place called Termite Hills. It sounds like some kind of settlement."

Settlement? If Mick and the others were alive, surely they would see those signs and go there.

"Yes. That's where they are."

"Alright," Olaf sighed. "But we must hurry. I am sick of the detours, yeah."

Olaf climbed behind the wheel.

"Thank you," Flyreese said to Eubanks.

"Totes no prob, dawg digity."

"Don't do that."

Eubanks looked down at his feet. "Sorry."


	15. The Legend of Pudding Dick

Mick ripped open the cellophane package and shoved the candy bar into his mouth, his stomach crying out in anticipation. Next to him, Howard scooped the last bit of chocolate pudding from its can and licked it from his fingers.

They found the sweets in a farmhouse off the tracks where they stopped to rest. Mick, eager to get up and moving, hobbled through the first floor while Ben and Aggie explored the upstairs.

Whoever had lived in the house really liked their knickknacks. Mick spent a full ten minutes going through the living room and mentally cataloging them all. Pigs. Chickens. Fair maidens. Sheep herders. Howard was with him in the beginning, but by the time he was done, the boy was gone, and Mick's heart seized.

"Howard!"

Mick shambled to the bottom of the stairs. "Howard?"

"He's not up here!" Ben panted.

Shit.

Panicking, Mick went back through the living room and into the kitchen.

The boy was there.

A metal can of pudding pressed against his groin.

He wasn't wearing any pants.

"Howard!"

Jerking, Howard's face went white; he dropped the can, and it hit the floor, splattering pudding everywhere.

Later, sitting at the kitchen table, Howard's eyes downcast, Mick sighed. "We'll tell them you dropped it."

The boy was _covered_ in chocolate. His pants. His shirt. All soaked.

"What were you thinking?"

Howard shrugged. "I thought it'd feel good," he mumbled.

"Well, did it?"

Howard reluctantly nodded. "There's more if you wanna try."

There were indeed more cans of pudding. Along with candy bars, Little Debbie snack cakes, Zingers, Twinkies, Ho-Hos. It looked like a twelve-year-old boy owned the place.

Now, three miles out, Mick tossed the candy wrapper out of the shopping cart and leaned back. "You alright?" Ben asked.

"I'm fine," Mick said. "I just don't like not walkin."

"Well, I don't like pushing you, but I'm doing it."

The tracks bent to the left and skirted a small town with narrow, shady streets and ancient stonework. A few metalheads wandered aimlessly here and there, their backs to the railroad.

"Everyone be quiet," Mick said, and everyone nodded.

They made it past the zombies, but a mile later they came to an impasse: A train had jumped the tracks and its cars lie twisted and burned, blocking the way.

"What now?" Ben asked.

"We can go through the woods," Howard said.

Mick sighed. "We might have to."

"Do you see another way?" Ben asked.

Mick pondered for a minute. "No," he said honestly, "I don't."

Howard helped Ben get the shopping cart over the outer rail...where it promptly sank into the soft, spongy earth.

"Fuck," Mick spat.

"Maybe if we..."

"No," Mick said, and climbed out. "I'll just walk."

"You sure, dad?"

"I'm fine."

They swung wide of the wreck, slipping quietly through the trees. A metalhead came out of the brush, startling them.

"Let me do it!" Howard said. He pulled out a pistol and clasped it in both hands, aiming high at the zombie's head.

"Howard..." Mick started, his chest tightening.

"I got it."

The zombie came closer.

"Howard!"

When the zombie was close enough to grab him, Howard fired: The bullet entered the thing's jaw and came out the back of its head. Groaning, it toppled to one side, but not before sweeping the screaming boy into its arms.

"Howard!"

Ben and Mick rushed to the child's side. The zombie was undoubtedly dead, thank God, but Howard was hysterical, crying.

Mick broke the thing's arms and pulled it off of his son while Ben dragged him out.

"You're okay!" the Asian said, hugging the boy. "It's dead, you got it."

"That was stupid, Howard!" Mick roared. "You could have been killed!"

"I handled it!" Howard wept.

"And almost died in the process! What were you thinking?"

"Stop treating me like a child! I'm almost nine! I'm a grown up!"

"No you aren't!"

"Fuck you, dad!"

Mick saw red. "What did you say to me, Pudding Dick? _What did you say?"_

"I hate you!"

Howard pulled away from Ben, got to his feet, and ran into the woods. Aggie followed.

"Wait, Hank!"

Now that the confrontation was over, Mick felt cold and empty inside. He sank to the ground and sighed.

"Pudding Dick?" Ben asked after a long silence.

"It's nothing," Mick replied. "I shouldn't have said it. I should have handled that better."

"Hey, don't beat yourself up."

"He's all I have left, Ben. And him doing stupid things like that...it scares me."

Ben sighed. "I can imagine. But the kid's gotta grow up sometime, right? Why not now? This is no world for children."

Mick opened his mouth to reply but closed it again. Ben was right. Weakness and innocence were luxuries that they couldn't afford right now. If Howard had any chance of surviving, he had to grow up.

Presently, Aggie returned with Howard. The boy was sullen and red faced.

"I'm sorry for saying what I said," Mick said. "You scared me is all. I love you, Howard."

"I love you too," Howard grumbled.

"Alright," Ben said, getting to his feet. "Let's get back to the tracks."

* * *

The sun beat relentlessly down, baking the central Georgia woodlands. MiShawn stopped, took a drink from her canteen, and glanced up at the sky. From the position of the sun, she guessed it was about two in the afternoon. They had been on the tracks for several hours, Derrick leading and Earl bringing up the rear. Since setting out, they had encountered several metalheads, one of them an obese woman wearing a faded Slaughter shirt. MiShawn took care of that one, cutting the top of her head off in one smooth motion. After she fell, Earl knelt beside her and went through her pockets.

"What are you doing?" MiShawn asked disgustedly.

"Lookin for pot," Earl replied. "I saw Slaughter in '89 and all the bitches were smoking doobies."

MiShawn rolled her eyes and continued on. Later, she caught a strong whiff on weed on the wind, and turned to see Earl blazing a joint and grinning.

"Guess you found some."

"I told you: Slaughter chicks love pot."

At noon, they stopped to rest by the tracks. Earl propped himself up against a rock and promptly fell asleep. Derrick gathered sticks from the woods and went about fashioning his own makeshift arrows.

"Your brother..." MiShawn started, but couldn't finish.

"He's a prick, huh?"

"That's actually what I was thinking," MiShawn laughed.

"He's always been a prick. Guess he got it from dad."

"I'm sorry," MiShawn said.

"Don't be," Derrick replied. "It doesn't matter."

When Derrick was done, he kicked his brother in the leg. "Come on. It's time to go."

Back on the tracks, they passed several more signs for Termite Hills. "Place sounds too good to be true," Derrick said at one point, tossing his hair.

"Probably is," MiShawn said.

"Bet it ain't as good as Morningwood."

"That place was a prison," MiShawn said.

"Maybe for you..."

At five, the sky clouded over and rumbles of thunder rose in the west. They had just passed through the town of Faye and were less than twenty miles from Termite Hills by the last map they had seen. The next town over was Margretville, five miles distant.

By five-thirty, the temperature had dropped and cold drops of rain had started to fall from the sky.

"This is tornado weather right here," Derrick said.

"You can say that again," Earl replied.

"We gotta get somewhere before the rain really starts," MiShawn said. As if on cue, a white frame house appeared from the woods. "There," MiShawn said. A crack of thunder ripped across the sky, and the clouds burst open. By the time they reached the back door they were drenched.

The door opened onto a kitchen. Holding her sword close, MiShawn went in first. In the dim, twilight gloom of the day, she saw nothing save for a mess on the floor. At first she thought it was dried blood, but Derrick, sniffing the air, cocked his head.

"Chocolate," he said. "And it's fresh."

He knelt down, swiped his finger through the mess, and stuck it into his mouth: He gagged. "Tastes like puberty."

Puberty?

 _Howard!_

"They were here!"

Derrick stood up. "Probably."

That meant they were only a couple miles behind.

"This rain doesn't look like it's gonna let up before dark," Earl said, looking out the window. "Might as well stay the night."

* * *

Despite her surge of self-confidence that morning, Marol found herself a nervous wreck by noon. The forest pressing against either side of the railroad was dense and dark, providing the perfect cover for anything from gunmen to vampires. Every time something moved or made noise, she jumped and cried out, her heart pounding so hard against her chest that she thought she was going to pass out.

As she walked, she thought back to the assault on the prison, to the bullet striking her, to the blackness, to waking with a Morningwood soldier standing over her, yelling something over his shoulder. She reacted without thinking then, grabbing his gun, ripping it from his hands and shoving the barrel deep into his stomach cavity. She wondered whether she could do that now, and knew that she couldn't.

She was so wrapped in her own thoughts that she didn't hear the footsteps until they were right behind her. Gasping, she turned.

In the past forty-eight hours, Marol had dealt with zombies and enemy soldiers. But neither were as terrifying as the sight behind her, nor inexplicable.

Two little girls, roughly ten or eleven, stood side-by-side in matching blue dresses. They were identical: Small, frail, with white faces and lusterless brown hair. Their eyes were too big for their emaciated faces, and their teeth too prominent.

"Come travel with us," they said in unison. "Come travel with us forever and ever and ever...

Marol was frozen, her blood heavy in her veins.

Something moved behind her, and she turned. Four metalheads were advancing from the forest, their flesh and clothing charred and black.

She began to hyperventilate. She turned back to the girls.

"I..." she started.

"We'll take care of them," the girls said together. "Super twins, activate!"

So quickly Marol almost missed it, the girl on the left picked up the girl on the right, swung her around, and let her go. The second girl soared through the air and smashed into one of the zombies, knocking it down. The first cartwheeled by and came to her feet in front of another zombie; she punched it in the stomach and pushed it down. The second kicked it in the head, and then knocked down the third zombie; it struck its head on the metal track and went limp.

The last zombie shambled in the other direction, whimpers of fear trailing over its shoulder.

"You better run!" the twins said together. "Or we'll get you."

When the rocker was gone, the twins turned to Marol. "I'm Bonnie," the one on the right said. "I'm Ronnie," the one on the left said. "Can we travel with you?"

Marol nodded.

Dumbly.

* * *

Flyreese sat crammed in the cab of the troop transport between Eubanks and Olaf. Rosa had scooted as close to the passenger door as humanly possible, but Eubanks's fat leg still pinned her.

"Termite Hills was founded in 1897 by John Termite," Eubanks said. "He was a Civil War veteran who was wounded at Antietam, and sued the government for the treatment he received as a POW. In lieu of payment, he accepted a massive land grant."

"How do you know that?" Flyreese asked.

"I know everything," Eubanks replied.

"It is true," Olaf nodded. "Eubanks is very smart, yes."

They were on US 220, which runs along the western edge of Upson County. The landscape alternated between heavy forest and open farmland. In one of the fields, Flyreese spotted a mangled hunk of burned metal and pointed it out.

"Many airplanes fell from the skies during the latter half of the plague," Eubanks explained. "When air traffic controllers were overrun the excentrictal force of Newton's Seventeenth Law of Physics and thermohydrodynamics became too great and they, unfortunately, could no longer fly."

Flyreese looked at the scientist. "What the fuck does _that_ mean?"

"I can't understand a thing he says, yeah," Olaf laughed, "that must mean his is smart, no?"

"Smarter than me," Flyreese admitted.

"It's simple on a subatomic level. Murphy Brown's Law says that what goes up must, in fact, come down, but Murphy Brown's _Second_ Law, the Fraser Clause, states that to do so, the object in question must have reached its full torque and lack friction while also rating a 2.5 on the Richter Scale."

Flyreese shook his head.

"In layman's terms: Plane thingy fall down and make big boom boom."

They lapsed into silence then. The world flashed by in blurs of green and yellow.

"What is this?" Olaf asked.

Flyreese looked ahead. A pile-up of stalled cars blocked the road. Olaf hit the brakes and the transport came to a rolling stop, kissing the bumper of a Toyota Tundra with Florida plates.

"That is an impenetrable impasse created by the mass..."

"Can it, smart boy," Olaf said.

"We can't get through," Rosa said.

"Another detour," Olaf sighed. "I am hating the detours."

Olaf threw the truck into reverse and started backing up. The road was narrow, the ground slanting away from it. Something happened. The next thing Flyreese knew, the truck was tipping, rolling, crashing through a fence and coming to rest upside down on the edge of a vast tobacco field, Olaf, Eubanks, and Rosa screaming.

"This is a bag of male sex organs, yes," Olaf said angrily, pushing open the driver door and crawling out.

"You overstated the self-referential point of balance by 3.51 degrees, dear Olaf," Eubanks said. "Meaning, in a practical sense, that refraction and mathematical equation..."

"You talk too much," Rosa said, getting out.

Standing along one of the truck's flanks, Flyresse assessed the damage. White smoke poured from the engine block, and gas pissed from the fuel tank, which he been ruptured by one of the fence posts.

"I can not believe this," Olaf sighed. "I guess we are walking, yeah."

* * *

Mick watched the fury of the storm from the bay window of a former veterinary clinic. Trees along the street shook and bent, and the traffic light over the nearest intersection swung back and forth like a pendulum, hypnotizing him. So lost was he, in fact, that he didn't know Ben was in the room until he spoke: "We found some candles in one of the rooms."

Though it couldn't be later than five o'clock in the afternoon, premature dusk had swallowed the world. Glancing over his shoulder, Mick could barely make out the Asian in the doorway.

"Keep them away from the windows," Mick said. "We don't want any rockers knowing we're here."

"Yeah."

Mick turned back to the window. Rain fell in torrential sheets, raking the buildings along the other side of the street like icy fingernails.

"Where's Howard?"

"Asleep," Ben said. "He's fine. Aggie's watching him."

Sleep sounded nice. Though he hadn't walked very far, Mick was tired; his body quivered with weariness. His leg throbbed, though not as bad as it had the day of the prison assault. God, was that really yesterday morning? It seemed like ages ago, eons. In fact, he could almost believe that it happened to somebody else and not to him at all.

Funny how quickly things change. Forty-eight hours ago he was planning on spending his life in a prison (happily, he mentally added), and now he was on his way to a place called Termite Hills. A safe haven.

Mick wondered.

Since waking from his coma (six months ago? A year?) he had never been safe. Neither had Howard. There were points where they _thought_ they were safe, but that safety was just an illusion, a mirage.

He was bitter, he knew, but why shouldn't he be? His best friend murdered his wife; several of his friends had died (Berschel...poor, poor Berschel), and everything that he hoped to have was ripped from his hands by some freak in a leather jacket.

Safety? Termite Hills? Please!

But there was a chance. Deep down he knew that, and if there was even a speck of hope that he could give Howard a better life, he had to take it.

"You alright?" Ben asked, startling Mick; he had forgotten he was there.

"Yeah," Mick said. "Just tired."

"Alright. Get some rest."

Ben sat a candle and a book of matches on the end table by the door and left, leaving

Mick alone with his thoughts.

* * *

Derrick sat in a chair by the kitchen window and looked up at the sky. MiShawn shuffled a deck of cards she had found and laid out a game of solitaire. Earl was asleep on the couch in the living room, his sawing snores filling the house.

"Your brother's gonna bring every rocker in Macon County down on us."

"Nah," Derrick replied without looking away from the window. "They can't hear him over this storm."

Rain lashed the back of the house, pelting the window like gravel. Earlier, a bolt of lightning struck a tree on the other side of the tracks and split it down the middle; the rain put the fire out almost instantly.

"Don't know how he can sleep through this."

"Growing up in our house you got used to noise," Derrick said. "Like arguing."

"Your parents argued a lot?"

"Yeah."

She wanted to say more, to see whether he would open up, but he stayed quiet, and so did she.

"When we find the others," she finally said, "do you think we should take them to Morningwood?"

For the first time, Derrick looked at her. "No."

"Why not? Morningwood has everything. Just like Earl said. The Governator's gone. Most of his fighters are gone. It shouldn't be too hard to..."

"Take over," Derrick supplied.

She nodded. "Yeah. Take over."

Derrick seemed to consider her proposition. "Maybe."

* * *

Marol and the twins ( _which one's which again?)_ made it off just tracks and into the back door of a strip mall just as the sky cracked open. In the dim light of the day, Marol ascertained that they were in some kind of storeroom. Boxes were stacked along the walls. A heavy metal door with a strip of glass looked out over the rest of the store: A Piggly-Wiggly, or a Winn-Dixie.

"I guess we're staying here for the night," Bonnie (or was it Ronnie?) said.

"Yeah. It's a hell of a storm," Ronnie (or was it Bonnie?) replied, settling down.

Thunder crashed, and Marol jumped: For a moment she was back at the Battle for the Prison, bullets whizzing by her head, artillery shells raining down, the bus behind her going up in an earth-shattering ball of flames.

"Are you scared?" one of the girls asked.

Marol, hugging herself, shook her head. "No," she said. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," the other said. "You look scared and weak."

"I'm not weak!" Marol roared, suddenly very angry. "I've done things you creepy little twits can't even imagine!"

The twins looked at each other, a furtive smile passing between them.

"Anger is a sign of weakness," one said smugly.

"So is hugging yourself."

"So is being scared of thunder."

"So is letting two eleven-year-olds fight your battles for you."

" _Shut up!"_

Marol clamped her hands over her ears. "I'm not weak! I'm not!"

"This is no world for weakness. If you're weak you die."

"And you wind up like all the other weak people, the ones who didn't make it past day one."

"The flabby businessmen."

"The hipsters."

"The ghetto bitches."

"The soccer moms."

"All the sad, dead, faceless schlubs."

"The _pathetic_ schlubs."

Marol wept.

* * *

"Delays irritate the skin on my buttocks," Olaf said. He was standing by the glass door to the platform. Outside, rain swept across the tracks.

They had gone roughly three miles east before the clouds rolled in. Eubanks figured the most direct route to Termite Hills would be the railroad, and they had just picked it up when the low, rumbling sound of thunder pealed across the sky. "Mother of penis," Olaf sighed. "It is going to storm."

"The atmospheric inertia is quickly reaching critical mass," Eubanks droned. "I predict a major tropical subsystem is passing by offshore. It _is_ hurricane season after all."

"You sound funny sometimes," Olaf said.

Presently Flyreese was sitting on one of the benches and reading a year old issue of _Time_ with a picture of a mass grave on the cover. Articles included: WHY THE DEAD BANG THEIR HEADS; PRESIDENT TRUMP DECLARES MARTIAL LAW; BILL CLINTON IMPLICATED IN ZOMBIE SEX SCANDAL; GOV'T TO BEGIN DEPORTING MEXICAN AND MUSLIM ZOMBIES.

"What are you reading?" Eubanks asked as he sat heavily next to Flyreese.

"Some bullshit."

" _Time_ has been bullshit since 1981 when..."

"You're a scientist, right?"

"Indeed I am."

"Then tell me: What's causing all this?"

For a long moment Eubanks didn't reply. "You wouldn't understand it."

"Try me."

"When we die, the snaps in our brain misfire and go out. The disease that's doing this causes the snaps to intertwine and thus continue to give life. Said life is different. Mental facilities are severely degraded."

Long after Eubanks had gotten up and left, Flyreese ran his spiel through his head. There was something...off about it. Flyreese wasn't a genius, but he knew that Eubanks had incorrectly referred to synapses as "snaps" and mental faculties as "facilities."

That was...odd, for a man of his stature.

Night fell.


End file.
